iced it a minute
before, but had not gone to it because a man was there. Towards this man
she now rushed, calling out, "Oh, do save him!"

Her voice and the sound of her footsteps were alike drowned by a rattle of
musketry from other parts of the ruin. She reached the man and stood
behind him; it was Texas Smith, a being from whom she had hitherto shrunk
with instinctive aversion; but now he seemed to her a friend in extremity.
He was aiming; she glanced over his shoulder along the levelled rifle; in
one breath she saw Thurstane and saw that the weapon was pointed at _him_.
With a shriek she sprang forward against the kneeling assassin, and flung
him clean through the crevice upon the earth outside the wall, the rifle
exploding as he fell and sending its ball at random.

Texas Smith was stupefied and even profoundly disturbed. After rolling
over twice, he picked himself up, picked up his gun also, and while
hastily reloading it clambered back into his lair, more than ever
confounded at seeing no one. Clara, her exploit accomplished, had
instantly turned and fled along the course of the wall, not at all with
the idea of escaping from the bushwhacker, but merely to meet Thurstane.
She passed a dozen men, but not one of them saw her, they were all so busy
in popping away at the Apaches. Just as she reached the large gap in the
rampart, her hero cantered through it, erect, unhurt, rosy, handsome,
magnificent. The impassioned gesture of joy with which she welcomed him
was a something, a revelation perhaps, which the youngster saw and
understood afterwards better than he did then. For the present he merely
waved her towards the Casa, and then turned to take a hand in the
fighting.

But the fighting was over. Indeed the Apaches had stopped their pursuit as
soon as they found that the fugitive was beyond arrow shot, and were now
prancing slowly back to their bivouac. After one angry look at them from
the wall, Thurstane leaped down and ran after Clara.

"Oh!" she gasped, out of breath and almost faint. "Oh, how it has
frightened me!"

"And it was all of no use," he answered, passing her arm into his and
supporting her.

"No. Poor Pepita! Poor little Pepita! But oh, what an escape you had!"

"We can only hope that they will adopt her into the tribe," he said in
answer to the first phrase, while he timidly pressed her arm to thank her
for the second.

Coronado now came up, ignorant of Texas Smith's misadventure, and puzz