Sergeant Meyer motioned him to go away. Thurstane was entering in his journal an inventory of the deceased soldier's effects having already made a minute of the date and cause of his death. These with other facts, such as name, age, physical description, birthplace, time of service, amount of pay due, balance of clothing-account and stoppages, must be more or less repeated on various records, such as the descriptive book of the company, the daily return, the monthly return, the quarterly return, the muster-roll from which the name would be dropped, and the final statements which were to go to the Adjutant-General and the Paymaster-General. Even in the desert the monstrous accountability system of the army lived and burgeoned. Nothing of importance happened until about noon, when the sentinel on the outer wall announced that the Apaches were approaching in force, and Thurstane gave orders to barricade one of the doors of the Casa with some large blocks of adobe, saying to himself, "I ought to have done it before." This work well under way, he hastened to the brow of the hill and reconnoitred the enemy. "They are not going to attack," said Coronado. "They are going to torture the girl Pepita." Thurstane turned away sick at heart, observing, "I must keep the women in the Casa." CHAPTER XXIV. When Thurstane, turning his back on the torture scene, had ascended to the roof of the Casa, he found the ladies excited and anxious. "What is the matter?" asked Clara at once, taking hold of his sleeve with the tips of her fingers, in a caressing, appealing way, which was common with her when talking to those she liked. Ordinarily our officer was a truth-teller; indeed, there was nothing which came more awkwardly to him than deception; he hated and despised it as if it were a personage, a criminal, an Indian. But here was a case where he must stoop to falsification, or at least to concealment. "The Apaches are just below," he mumbled. "Not one of you women must venture out. I will see to everything. Be good now." She gave his sleeve a little twitch, smiled confidingly in his face, and sat down to do some much-needed mending.