Leaving Thurstane in the desert, we return to Clara in the desert. It will
be remembered that she stood on the roof of the Casa Grande when her lover
was swept oarless down the San Juan.
She was watching him; of course she was watching him; at the moment of the
catastrophe she saw him; she felt sure also that he was looking at her.
The boat began to fly down the current; then the two oarsmen fell to
paddling violently; what did it mean? Far from guessing that the towline
had snapped, she was not aware that there was one.
On went the boat; presently it whirled around helplessly; it was nearing
the rocks of the rapid; there was evidently danger. Running to the edge of
the roof, Clara saw a Mexican cattle-driver standing on the wall of the
enclosure, and called to him, "What is the matter?"
"The lariats have broken," he replied. "They are drifting."
Clara uttered a little gasp of a shriek, and then did not seem to breathe
again for a minute. She saw Thurstane led away in captivity by the savage
torrent; she saw him rise up in the boat and wave her a farewell; she
could not lift her hand to respond; she could only stand and stare. She
had a look, and there was within her a sensation, as if her soul were
starting out of her eyes. The whole calamity revealed itself to her at
once and without mercy. There was no saving him and no going after him; he
was being taken out of her sight; he was disappearing; he was gone. She
leaned forward, trying to look around the bend of the river, and was
balked by a monstrous, cruel advance of precipices. Then, when she
realized that he had vanished, there was a long scream ending in
unconsciousness.
When she came to herself everybody was talking of the calamity. Coronado,
Aunt Maria, and others overflowed with babblings of regret, astonishment,
explanations, and consolation. The lariats had broken. How could it have
happened! How dreadful! etc.
"But he will land," cried Clara, looking eagerly from face to face.
"Oh, certainly," said Coronado. "Landings can be made. There are none
visible, but doubtless they exist."
"And then he will march back here?" she demanded.
"Not easily. I am afraid, my dear cousin, not very easily. There would be
cañons to turn, and long ones. Probably he would strike for the Moqui
country."
"Across the desert? No water!"
Coronado shrugged his shoulders as if to say that he could not help it.
"If we go back to-morrow," she began again, "do you think we shall
overtake them?"
"I think it very probable," lied Coronado.
"And if we don't overtake them, will they join us at the Moqui pueblos?"
"Yes, yes. I have little doubt of it."
"When do you think we ought to start?"
"To-morrow morning."
"Won't that be too early?"
"Day after to-morrow then."
"Won't that be too late?"
Coronado nearly boiled over with rage. This girl was going to demand
impossibilities of him, and impossibilities that he would not perform if
he could. He must be here and he must be there; he must be quick enough
and not a minute too quick; and all to save his rival from the pit which
he had just dug for him. Turning his back on Clara, he paced the roof of
the Casa in an excitement which he could not conceal, muttering, "I will
do the best I can--the best I can."
Presently the remembrance that he had at least gained one great triumph
enabled him to recover his self-possession and his foxy cunning.
"My dear cousin," he said gently, "you must not suppose that I am not
greatly afflicted by this accident. I appreciate the high merit of
Lieutenant Thurstane, and I grieve sincerely at his misfortune. What can I
do? I will do the best I can for all. Trusting to your good sense, I will
do whatever you say. But if you want my advice, here it is. We ought for
our own sakes to leave here to-morrow; but for his sake we will wait a
day. In that time he may rejoin us, or he may regain the Moqui trail. So
we will set out, if you have no objection, on the morning of day after
to-morrow, and push for the pueblos. When we do start, we must march, as
you know, at our best speed."
"Thank you, Coronado," said Clara. "It is the best you can do."
There were not five minutes during that day and the next that the girl did
not look across the plain to the gorge of the dry cañon, in the hope that
she might see Thurstane approaching. At other times she gazed eagerly down
the San Juan, although she knew that he could not stem the current. Her
love and her sorrow were ready to believe in miracles. How is it possible,
she often thought, that such a brief sweep of water should carry him so
utterly away? In spite of her fear of vexing Coronado, she questioned him
over and over as to the course of the stream and the nature of its banks,
only to find that he knew next to nothing.
"It will be hard for him to return to us," the man finally suggested, with
an air of being driven unwillingly to admit it. "He may have to go on a
long way down the river."
The truth is that, not knowing whether the lost men could return easily or
not, he was anxious to get away from their neighborhood.
Before the second day of this suspense was over, Aunt Maria had begun to
make herself obnoxious. She hinted that Thurstane knew what he was about;
that the river was his easiest road to his station; that, in short, he had
deserted. Clara flamed up indignantly and replied, "I know him better."
"Why, what has he got to do with us?" reasoned Aunt Maria. "He doesn't
belong to our party."
"He has his men here. He wouldn't leave his soldiers."
"His men! They can take care of themselves. If they can't, I should like
to know what they are good for. I think it highly probable he went off of
his own choice."
"I think it highly probable you know nothing about it," snapped Clara.
"You are incapable of judging him."
The girl was not just now herself. Her whole soul was concentrated in
justifying, loving, and saving Thurstane; and her manner, instead of being
serenely and almost lazily gentle, was unpleasantly excited. It was as if
some charming alluvial valley should suddenly give forth the steam and
lava of a volcano.
Finding no sympathy in Aunt Maria, and having little confidence in the
good-will of Coronado, she looked about her for help. There was Sergeant
Meyer; he had been Thurstane's right-hand man; moreover, he looked
trustworthy. She seized the first opportunity to beckon him up to her
eerie on the roof of the Casa.
"Sergeant, I must speak with you privately," she said at once, with the
frankness of necessity.
The sergeant, a well-bred soldier, respectful to ladies, and especially to
ladies who were the friends of officers, raised his forefinger to his cap
and stood at attention.
"How came Lieutenant Thurstane to go down the river?" she asked.
"It was the lariat proke," replied Meyer, in a whispering, flute-like
voice which he had when addressing his superiors.
"Did it break, or was it cut?"
The sergeant raised his small, narrow, and rather piggish gray eyes to
hers with a momentary expression of anxiety.
"I must pe gareful what I zay," he answered, sinking his voice still
lower. "We must poth pe gareful. I examined the lariat. I fear it was
sawed. But we must not zay this."
"Who sawed it?" demanded Clara with a gasp.
"It was no one in the poat," replied Meyer diplomatically.
"Was it that man--that hunter--Smith?"
Another furtive glance between the sandy eyelashes expressed an uneasy
astonishment; the sergeant evidently had a secret on his mind which he
must not run any risk of disclosing.
"I do not zee how it was Schmidt" he fluted almost inaudibly. "He was
watching the peasts at their basture."
"Then who did saw it?"
"I do not know. I do not feel sure that it was sawed."
Perceiving that, either from ignorance or caution, he would not say more
on this point, Clara changed the subject and asked, "Can Lieutenant
Thurstane go down the river safely?"
"I would like noting petter than to make the exbedition myself," replied
Meyer, once more diplomatic.
Now came a silence, the soldier waiting respectfully, the girl not knowing
how much she might dare to say. Not that she doubted Meyer; on the
contrary, she had a perfect confidence in him; how could she fail to trust
one who had been trusted by Thurstane?
"Sergeant," she at last whispered, "we must find him."
"Yes, miss," touching his cap as if he were taking an oath by it.
"And you," she hesitated, "must protect _me_."
"Yes, miss," and the sergeant repeated his gesture of solemn affirmation.
"Perhaps I will say more some time."
He saluted again, and seeing that she had nothing to add, retired quietly.
For two nights there was little sleep for Clara. She passed them in
pondering Thurstane's chances, or in listening for his returning
footsteps. Yet when the train set out for the Moqui pueblos, she seemed as
vigorous and more vivacious than usual. What supported her now and for
days afterward was what is called the strength of fever.
The return across the desert was even more terrible than the advance, for
the two scant water-holes had been nearly exhausted by the Apaches, so
that both beasts and human beings suffered horribly with thirst. There was
just this one good thing about the parched and famished wilderness, that
it relieved the emigrants from all fear of ambushing enemies. Supernatural
beings alone could have, bushwhacked here. The Apaches had gone.
Meanwhile Sergeant Meyer had a sore conscience. From the moment the boat
went down the San Juan he had more or less lain awake with the idea that,
according to the spirit of his instructions from Thurstane, he ought to
have Texas Smith tied up and shot. Orders were orders; there was no
question about that, as a general principle; the sergeant had never heard
the statement disputed. But when he came to consider the case now before
him, he was out-generalled by a doubt. This, drifting of a boat down a
strange river, was it murder in the sense intended by Thurstane? And,
supposing it to be murder, could it be charged in any way upon Smith? In
the whole course of his military experience Sergeant Meyer had never been
more perplexed. On the evening of the first day's march he could bear his
sense of responsibility no longer, and decided to call a council of war.
Beckoning his sole remaining comrade aside from the bivouac, he entered
upon business.
"Kelly, we are unter insdructions," he began in his flute-like tone.
"I know it, sergeant," replied Kelly, decorously squirting his
tobacco-juice out of the corner of his mouth furthest from his superior.
"The question is, Kelly, whether Schmidt should pe shot."
"The responsibility lies upon you, sergeant. I will shoot him if so be
such is orders."
"Kelly, the insdructions were to shoot him if murder should habben in this
barty. The instructions were loose."
"They were so, sergeant--not defining murder."
"The question is, Kelly, whether what has habbened to the leftenant is
murder. If it is murder, then Schmidt must go."
The two men were sitting on a bowlder side by side, their hands on their
knees and their muskets leaning against their shoulders. They did not look
at each other at all, but kept their grave eyes on the ground. Kelly
squirted his tobacco-juice sidelong two or three times before he replied.
"Sergeant," he finally said, "my opinion is we can't set this down for
murder until we know somebody is dead."
"Shust so, Kelly. That is my obinion myself."
"Consequently it follows, sergeant, if you don't see to the contrary, that
until we know that to be a fact, it would be uncalled for to shoot Smith."
"What you zay, Kelly, is shust what I zay."
"Furthermore, however, sergeant, it might be right and is the way of duty,
to call up Smith and make him testify as to what he knows of this
business, whether it be murder, or meant for murder."
"Cock your beece, Kelly."
Both men cocked their pieces.
"Now I will gall Schmidt out and question him," continued Meyer, "You will
stand on one side and pe ready to opey my orders."
"Very good, sergeant," said Kelly, and dropped back a little into the
nearly complete darkness.
Meyer sang out sharply, "Schmidt! Texas Schmidt!"
The desperado heard the summons, hesitated a moment, cocked the revolver
in his belt, loosened his knife in its sheath, rose from his blanket, and
walked slowly in the direction of the voice. Passing Kelly without seeing
him, he confronted Meyer, his hand on his pistol. There was not the
slightest tremor in the hoarse, low croak with which he asked, "What's the
game, sergeant?"
"Schmidt, stand berfectly still," said Meyer in his softest fluting.
"Kelly has his beece aimed at your head. If you stir hant or foot, you are
a kawn koose."