“Sergeant, I must speak with you privately,” she said at once, with the frankness of necessity.

The sergeant, a well-bred soldier, respectful to ladies, and especially to ladies who were the friends of officers, raised his forefinger to his cap and stood at attention.

“How came Lieutenant Thurstane to go down the river?” she asked.

“It was the lariat proke,” replied Meyer, in a whispering, flute-like voice which he had when addressing his superiors.

“Did it break, or was it cut?”

The sergeant raised his small, narrow, and rather piggish gray eyes to hers with a momentary expression of anxiety.

“I must pe gareful what I zay,” he answered, sinking his voice still lower.  “We must poth pe gareful.  I examined the lariat.  I fear it was sawed.  But we must not zay this.”

“Who sawed it?” demanded Clara with a gasp.

“It was no one in the poat,” replied Meyer diplomatically.

“Was it that man—­that hunter—­Smith?”

Another furtive glance between the sandy eyelashes expressed an uneasy astonishment; the sergeant evidently had a secret on his mind which he must not run any risk of disclosing.

“I do not zee how it was Schmidt” he fluted almost inaudibly.  “He was watching the peasts at their basture.”

“Then who did saw it?”

“I do not know.  I do not feel sure that it was sawed.”

Perceiving that, either from ignorance or caution, he would not say more on this point, Clara changed the subject and asked, “Can Lieutenant Thurstane go down the river safely?”

“I would like noting petter than to make the exbedition myself,” replied Meyer, once more diplomatic.

Now came a silence, the soldier waiting respectfully, the girl not knowing how much she might dare to say.  Not that she doubted Meyer; on the contrary, she had a perfect confidence in him; how could she fail to trust one who had been trusted by Thurstane?

“Sergeant,” she at last whispered, “we must find him.”

“Yes, miss,” touching his cap as if he were taking an oath by it.

“And you,” she hesitated, “must protect me.”

“Yes, miss,” and the sergeant repeated his gesture of solemn affirmation.

“Perhaps I will say more some time.”

He saluted again, and seeing that she had nothing to add, retired quietly.

For two nights there was little sleep for Clara.  She passed them in pondering Thurstane’s chances, or in listening for his returning footsteps.  Yet when the train set out for the Moqui pueblos, she seemed as vigorous and more vivacious than usual.  What supported her now and for days afterward was what is called the strength of fever.

The return across the desert was even more terrible than the advance, for the two scant water-holes had been nearly exhausted by the Apaches, so that both beasts and human beings suffered horribly with thirst.  There was just this one good thing about the parched and famished wilderness, that it relieved the emigrants from all fear of ambushing enemies.  Supernatural beings alone could have, bushwhacked here.  The Apaches had gone.