“We might have broken it up,” returned Thurstane sullenly.

“No, Capm.  You don’t know ’em.  They’d got thar noses p’inted to torture that gal.  If they didn’t do it thar, they’d a done it a little furder off.  They was bound to do it.  Now it’s done, they’ll travel.”

Warned by their last misadventure, the Indians presently retired to their usual camping ground, leaving their victim attached to the sapling.

“I’ll fotch her up,” volunteered Texas, who had a hyena’s hankering after dead bodies.  “Reckon you’d like to bury her.”

He mounted, rode slowly, and with prudent glances to right and left, down the hill, halted under the tree, stood up in his saddle and worked there for some minutes.  The Apaches looked on from a distance, uttering yells of exultation and making opprobrious gestures.  Presently Texas resumed his seat and cantered gently back to the ruins, bearing across his saddle-bow a fearful burden, the naked body of a girl of eighteen, pierced with more than fifty arrows, stained and streaked all over with blood, the limbs shockingly mangled, and the mouth stuffed with rags.

While nearly every other spectator turned away in horror, he glared steadily and calmly at the corpse, repeating, “That’s Injin fun, that is.  That’s what they brag on, that is.”

“Bury her outside the wall,” ordered Thurstane with averted face.  “And listen, all you people, not a word of this to the women.”

“We shall be catechised,” said Coronado.

“You must do the lying,” replied the officer.  He was so shaken by what he had witnessed that he did not dare to face Clara for an hour afterward, lest his discomposure should arouse her suspicions.  When he did at last visit the tower, she was quiet and smiling, for Coronado had done his lying, and done it well.

“So there was no attack,” she said.  “I am so glad!”

“Only a little skirmish.  You heard the firing, of course.”

“Yes.  Coronado told us about it.  What a horrible howling the Indians made!  There were some screams that were really frightful.”

“It was their last demonstration.  They will probably be gone in the morning.”

“Poor Pepita!  She will be carried off,” said Clara, a tear or two stealing down her cheek.

“Yes, poor Pepita!” sighed Thurstane.

The muleteer who had been killed in the assault was already buried.  At sundown came the funeral of the soldier Shubert.  The body, wrapped in a blanket, was borne by four Mexicans to the grave which had been prepared for it, followed by his three comrades with loaded muskets, and then by all the other members of the party, except Mrs. Stanley, who looked down from her roof upon the spectacle.  Thurstane acted as chaplain, and read the funeral service from Clara’s prayer-book, amidst the weeping of women and the silence of men.  The dead young hero was lowered into his last resting-place.  Sergeant Meyer gave the order:  “Shoulder arms—­ready—­present—­aim—­fire!” The ceremony was ended; the muleteers filled the grave; a stone was placed to mark it; so slept a good soldier.