CHAPTER IX.

For the second time within a week, Texas Smith found himself upon the brink of opportunity, without being able (as he had phrased it to Coronado) to do what was right.

He levelled at Thurstane, and then it did not seem to be Thurstane; he had a dead sure sight at Kelly, and then perceived that that was an error; he drew a bead on Shubert, and still he hesitated.  He could distinguish the Lieutenant’s voice, but he could not fix upon the figure which uttered it.

It was exasperating.  Never had an assassin been better ambuscaded.  He was kneeling behind a little ridge of sandstone; about a foot below its edge was an orifice made by the rains and winds of bygone centuries; through this, as through an embrasure, he had thrust his rifle.  Not a chance of being hit by a return shot, while after the enemy’s fire had been drawn he could fly down the ravine, probably without discovery and certainly without recognition.  His horse was tethered below, behind another rock; and he felt positive that these men had not come upon it.  He could mount, drive their beasts before him into the plain, and then return to camp.  No need of explaining his absence; he was the head hunter of the expedition; it was his business to wander.

All this was so easy to do, if he could only take the first step.  But he dared not fire lest he should merely kill a soldier, and so make an uproar and rouse suspicions without the slightest profit.  It was not probable that Coronado would pay him for shooting the wrong man, and setting on foot a dangerous investigation.  So the desperado continued to peer through the dim night, cursing his stars and everybody’s stars for not shining better, and seeing his opportunity slip rapidly away.  After Thurstane and the others had passed, after the chance of murder had stalked by him like a ghost and vanished, he left his ambush, glided down the ravine to his horse, waked him up with a vindictive kick, leaped into the saddle, and hastened to camp.  To inquiries about the lost couple he replied in his sullen, brief way that he had not seen them; and when urged to go to their rescue, he of course set off in the wrong direction and travelled but a short distance.

Meantime Ralph had found the captives of the canon.  Clara, wrapped in her blankets, was lying at the foot of a rock, and crying while she pretended to sleep.  Coronado, unable to make her talk, irritated by the faint sobs which he overheard, but stubbornly resolved on carrying out his stupid plot, had retired in a state of ill-humor unusual with him to another rock, and was consoling himself by smoking cigarito after cigarito.  The two horses, tied together neck and crupper, were fasting near by.  As Coronado had forgotten to bring food with him, Clara was also fasting.