,
and impassable to horses.

"We are lost," confessed Coronado, and then proceeded to console her. The
train could not be far off; their friends would undoubtedly seek them; at
all events, would not go on without them. They must bivouac there as well
as might be, and in the morning rejoin the caravan.

He had been forethoughted enough to bring two blankets on his saddle, and
he now spread them out for her, insisting that she should try to sleep.
Clara cried frankly and heartily, and begged him to lead her back through
the canon. No; it could not be traversed by night, he asserted; they would
certainly break their necks among the bowlders. At last the girl suffered
herself to be wrapped in the blankets, and made an endeavor to forget her
wretchedness and vexation in slumber.

Meantime, a few hundred yards down the ravine, a tragedy was on the verge
of action. Thurstane, missing Coronado and Clara, and learning what
direction they had taken, started with two of his soldiers to find them,
and was now picking his way on foot along the canon. Behind a detached
rock at the base of one of the sandstone walls Texas Smith lay in ambush,
aiming his rifle first at one and then at another of this stumbling trio,
and cursing the starlight because it was so dim that he could not
positively distinguish which was the officer.

CHAPTER IX.

For the second time within a week, Texas Smith found himself upon the
brink of opportunity, without being able (as he had phrased it to
Coronado) to do what was right.

He levelled at Thurstane, and then it did not seem to be Thurstane; he had
a dead sure sight at Kelly, and then perceived that that was an error; he
drew a bead on Shubert, and still he hesitated. He could distinguish the
Lieutenant's voice, but he could not fix upon the figure which uttered it.

It was exasperating. Never had an assassin been better ambuscaded. He was
kneeling behind a little ridge of sandstone; about a foot below its edge
was an orifice made by the rains and winds of bygone centuries; through
this, as through an embrasure, he had thrust his rifle. Not a chance of
being hit by a return shot, while after the enemy's fire had been drawn he
could fly down the ravine, probably without discovery and certainly
without recognition. His horse was tethered below, behind another rock;
and he felt positive that these men had not come upon it. He could mount,
drive their beasts before him into the plain, and then