distinguished himself.

"Captain Glover, what's the matter with your nose?" was the lady's next
outcry.

"Wal, it's been bored," replied Glover, tenderly fingering his sore
proboscis. "It's been, so to speak, eyelet-holed. I'm glad I hadn't but
one. The more noses a feller kerries in battle, the wuss for him. I hope
the darned rip'll heal up. I've no 'casion to hev a line rove through it
'n' be towed, that I know of."

"How did it feel when it went through?" asked Aunt Maria, full of
curiosity and awe.

"Felt's though I'd got the dreadfullest influenzee thet ever snorted.
Twitched 'n' tickled like all possessed."

"Was it an arrow?" inquired the still unsatisfied lady.

"Reckon 'twas. Never see it. But it kinder whished, 'n' I felt the
feathers. Darn 'em! When I felt the feathers, tell ye I was 'bout half
scairt. Hed 'n idee 'f th' angel 'f death, 'n' so on."

Of course Aunt Maria and Clara wanted to do much nursing immediately; but
there were no conveniences and there was no time; and so benevolence was
postponed.

"So you are hurt?" said Thurstane to Texas Smith, noticing his torn and
bloody shirt.

"It's jest a scrape," grunted the bushwhacker. "Mought'a'been worse."

"It was bad generalship trying to save you. We nearly paid high for it."

"That's so. Cost four greasers, as 'twas. Well, I'm worth four greasers."

"You're a devil of a fighter," continued the Lieutenant, surveying the
ferocious face and sullen air of the cutthroat with a soldier's admiration
for whatever expresses pugnacity.

"Bet yer pile on it," returned Texas, calmly conscious of his character.
"So be you."

The savage black eyes and the imperious blue ones stared into each other
without the least flinching and with something like friendliness.

Coronado rode up to the pair and asked, "Is that boy alive yet?"

"It's about time for him to flop round," replied Texas indifferently.
"Reckon you'll find him in the off hind wagon. I shoved him in thar."

Coronado cantered to the off hind wagon, peeped through the rear opening
of its canvas cover, discovered the youth lying on a pile of luggage,
addressed him in Spanish, and learned his story. He belonged to a hacienda
in Bernalillo, a hundred miles or more west of Santa Fe. The Apaches had
surprised the hacienda and plundered it, carrying him off because, having
formerly been a captive among them, he could speak their language, manage
the bow, etc.

For all this Coronado cared nothi