d with teeth grimly set, rifle balanced across his saddle-bow,
revolver slung to his wrist, he started in silence and at full speed on
his almost hopeless rush. If you will cease to consider the man as a
modern bushwhacker, and invest him temporarily with the character,
ennobled by time, of a borderer of the Scottish marches, you will be able
to feel some sympathy for him in his audacious enterprise.

He was mounted on an American horse, a half-blood gray, large-boned and
powerful, who could probably have traversed the half-mile in a minute had
there been no impediment, and who was able to floor with a single shock
two or three of the little animals of the Apaches. He was a fine spectacle
as he thundered alone across the plain, upright and easy in his seat,
balancing his heavy rifle as if it were a rattan, his dark and cruel face
settled for fight and his fierce black eyes blazing.

Only a minute's ride, but that minute life or death. As he had expected,
the Apaches discovered him almost as soon as he left the cover of his
butte, and all the outlying members of the horde swarmed toward him with a
yell, brandishing their spears and getting ready their bows as they rode.
It would clearly be impossible for him to cut his way through thirty
warriors unless he received assistance from the train. Would it come? His
evil conscience told him, without the least reason, that Thurstane would
not help. But from Coronado, whose life he had saved and whose evil work
he had undertaken to do--from this man, "greaser" as he was, he did expect
a sally. If it did not come, and if he should escape by some rare chance,
he, Texas Smith, would murder the Mexican the first time he found him
alone, so help him God!

While he thought and cursed he flew. But his goal was still five hundred
yards away, and the nearest redskins were within two hundred yards, when
he saw a rescuing charge shoot out from the wagons. Coronado led it. In
this foxy nature the wolf was not wanting, and under strong impulse he
could be somewhat of a Pizarro. He had no starts of humanity nor of real
chivalry, but he had family pride and personal vanity, and he was capable
of the fighting fury. When Thurstane had given the word to advance,
Coronado had put himself forward gallantly.

"Stay here," he said to the officer; "guard the train with your infantry.
I am a caballero, and I will do a caballero's work," he added, rising
proudly in his stirrups. "Come on, you villains