"Don't, if you please," said Thurstane, the disciplinarian rising in him. "You would spoil him for the service." "Can't I send him a dish from our table?" "That would just suit his case. He hasn't got broken to hard-tack yet." "Miss Van Diemen," was his next remark, "do you know what you are to do, if we are attacked?" "I am to get into a wagon." "Into which wagon?" "Into my aunt's." "Why into that one?" "So as to have all the ladies together." "When you have got into the wagon, what next?" "Lie down on the floor to protect myself from the arrows." "Very good," laughed Thurstane. "You say your tactics well." This catechism had been put and recited every day since he had joined the train. The putting of it was one of the Lieutenant's duties and pleasures; and, notwithstanding its prophecy of peril, Clara enjoyed it almost as much as he. Well, we have heard these two talk, and much in their usual fashion. Not great souls as yet: they may indeed become such some day; but at present they are only mature in moral power and in capacity for mighty emotions. Information, mental development, and conversational ability hereafter. In one way or another two or three of these tête-à-têtes were brought about every day. Thurstane wanted them all the time; would have been glad to make life one long dialogue with Miss Van Diemen; found an aching void in every moment spent away from her. Clara, too, in spite of maidenly struggles with herself, began to be of this way of feeling. Wonderful place the Great American Desert for falling in love! Coronado soon guessed, and with good reason, that the seed which he had sown in the girl's mind was being replaced by other germs, and that he had blundered in trusting that she would think of him while she was talking with Thurstane. The fear of losing her increased his passion for her, and made him hate his rival with correlative fervor. "Why don't you find a chance at that fellow?" he muttered to his bravo, Texas Smith. "How the h--l kin I do it?" growled the bushwhacker, feeling that his intelligence and courage were unjustly called in question. "He's allays around the train, an' his sojers allays handy. I hain't had nary chance." "Take him off on a hunt." "He ain't a gwine. I reckon he knows himself. I'm afeard to praise huntin' much to him; he might get on my trail. Tell you these army chaps is resky. I never wanted to meddle with them kind o' close. You know I said so. I said so, fair an' square, I did." "You might manage it somehow, if you had the pluck."