But the fighting was over. Indeed the Apaches had stopped their pursuit as soon as they found that the fugitive was beyond arrow shot, and were now prancing slowly back to their bivouac. After one angry look at them from the wall, Thurstane leaped down and ran after Clara. "Oh!" she gasped, out of breath and almost faint. "Oh, how it has frightened me!" "And it was all of no use," he answered, passing her arm into his and supporting her. "No. Poor Pepita! Poor little Pepita! But oh, what an escape you had!" "We can only hope that they will adopt her into the tribe," he said in answer to the first phrase, while he timidly pressed her arm to thank her for the second. Coronado now came up, ignorant of Texas Smith's misadventure, and puzzled at the escape of Thurstane, but as fluent and complimentary as usual. "My dear Lieutenant! Language is below my feelings. I want to kneel down and worship you. You ought to have a statue--yes, and an altar. If your humanity has not been successful, it has been all the same glorious." "Nonsense," answered Thurstane. "Every one of us has done well in his turn! It was my tour of duty to-day. Don't praise me. I haven't accomplished anything." "Ah, the scoundrels!" declaimed Coronado. "How could they violate a truce! It is unknown, unheard of. The miserable traitors! I wish you could have killed Manga Colorada." From this dialogue he hurried away to find and catechise Texas Smith. The desperado told his story: "Jest got a bead on him--had him sure pop--never see a squarer mark--when somebody mounted me--pitched me clean out of my hole." "Who?" demanded Coronado, a rim of white showing clear around his black pupils. "Dunno. Didn't see nobody. 'Fore I could reload and git in it was gone." "What the devil did you stop to reload for?" "Stranger, I _allays_ reload." Coronado flinched under the word _stranger_ and the stare which accompanied it. "It was a woman's yell," continued Texas. Coronado felt suddenly so weak that he sat down on a mouldering heap of adobes. He thought of Clara; was it Clara? Jealous and terrified, he for an instant, only for an instant, wished she were dead. "See here," he said, when he had restrung his nerves a little. "We must separate. If there is any trouble, call on me. I'll stand by you." "I reckon you'd better," muttered Smith, looking at Coronado as if he were already drawing a bead on him.