It seems ridiculous that a fellow who could hold his head straight up before a storm of cannon shot, should be positively bashful.  Yet so it was.  The boy had been through West Point, to be sure; but he had studied there, and not flirted; the Academy had not in any way demoralized him.  On the whole, in spite of swearing under gross provocation, and an inclination toward strictness in discipline, he answered pretty well for a Bayard.

His bashfulness was such, at least in the presence of Clara, that he trembled to the tips of his fingers in merely making this remark:  “Miss Van Diemen, this journey is the pleasantest thing in my whole life.”

Clara blushed until she dazzled him and seemed to burn herself.  Nevertheless she was favored with her usual childlike artlessness of speech, and answered, “I am glad you find it agreeable.”

Nothing more from Ralph for a minute; he was recovering his breath and self-possession.

“You cannot think how much safer I feel because you and your men are with us,” said Clara.

Thurstane unconsciously gripped the handle of his sabre, with a feeling that he could and would massacre all the Indians of the desert, if it were necessary to preserve her from harm.

“Yes, you may rely upon my men, too,” he declared.  “They have a sort of adoration for you.”

“Have they?” asked Clara, with a frank smile of pleasure.  “I wonder at it.  I hardly notice them.  I ought to, they seem so patient and trusty.”

“Ah, a lady!” said Thurstane.  “A good soldier will die any time for a lady.”

Then he wondered how she could have failed to guess that she must be worshipped by these rough men for her beauty.

“I have overheard them talking about you,” he went on, gratified at being able to praise her to her face, though in the speech of others.  “Little Sweeny says, in his Irish brogue, ’I can march twic’t as fur for the seein’ av her!’”

“Oh! did he?” laughed Clara.  “I must carry Sweeny’s musket for him some time.”

“Don’t, if you please,” said Thurstane, the disciplinarian rising in him.  “You would spoil him for the service.”

“Can’t I send him a dish from our table?”

“That would just suit his case.  He hasn’t got broken to hard-tack yet.”

“Miss Van Diemen,” was his next remark, “do you know what you are to do, if we are attacked?”

“I am to get into a wagon.”

“Into which wagon?”

“Into my aunt’s.”

“Why into that one?”

“So as to have all the ladies together.”

“When you have got into the wagon, what next?”

“Lie down on the floor to protect myself from the arrows.”

“Very good,” laughed Thurstane.  “You say your tactics well.”

This catechism had been put and recited every day since he had joined the train.  The putting of it was one of the Lieutenant’s duties and pleasures; and, notwithstanding its prophecy of peril, Clara enjoyed it almost as much as he.