“The lariats have broken,” he replied.  “They are drifting.”

Clara uttered a little gasp of a shriek, and then did not seem to breathe again for a minute.  She saw Thurstane led away in captivity by the savage torrent; she saw him rise up in the boat and wave her a farewell; she could not lift her hand to respond; she could only stand and stare.  She had a look, and there was within her a sensation, as if her soul were starting out of her eyes.  The whole calamity revealed itself to her at once and without mercy.  There was no saving him and no going after him; he was being taken out of her sight; he was disappearing; he was gone.  She leaned forward, trying to look around the bend of the river, and was balked by a monstrous, cruel advance of precipices.  Then, when she realized that he had vanished, there was a long scream ending in unconsciousness.

When she came to herself everybody was talking of the calamity.  Coronado, Aunt Maria, and others overflowed with babblings of regret, astonishment, explanations, and consolation.  The lariats had broken.  How could it have happened!  How dreadful! etc.

“But he will land,” cried Clara, looking eagerly from face to face.

“Oh, certainly,” said Coronado.  “Landings can be made.  There are none visible, but doubtless they exist.”

“And then he will march back here?” she demanded.

“Not easily.  I am afraid, my dear cousin, not very easily.  There would be canons to turn, and long ones.  Probably he would strike for the Moqui country.”

“Across the desert?  No water!”

Coronado shrugged his shoulders as if to say that he could not help it.

“If we go back to-morrow,” she began again, “do you think we shall overtake them?”

“I think it very probable,” lied Coronado.

“And if we don’t overtake them, will they join us at the Moqui pueblos?”

“Yes, yes.  I have little doubt of it.”

“When do you think we ought to start?”

“To-morrow morning.”

“Won’t that be too early?”

“Day after to-morrow then.”

“Won’t that be too late?”

Coronado nearly boiled over with rage.  This girl was going to demand impossibilities of him, and impossibilities that he would not perform if he could.  He must be here and he must be there; he must be quick enough and not a minute too quick; and all to save his rival from the pit which he had just dug for him.  Turning his back on Clara, he paced the roof of the Casa in an excitement which he could not conceal, muttering, “I will do the best I can—­the best I can.”

Presently the remembrance that he had at least gained one great triumph enabled him to recover his self-possession and his foxy cunning.