He was mounted on an American horse, a half-blood gray, large-boned and powerful, who could probably have traversed the half-mile in a minute had there been no impediment, and who was able to floor with a single shock two or three of the little animals of the Apaches.  He was a fine spectacle as he thundered alone across the plain, upright and easy in his seat, balancing his heavy rifle as if it were a rattan, his dark and cruel face settled for fight and his fierce black eyes blazing.

Only a minute’s ride, but that minute life or death.  As he had expected, the Apaches discovered him almost as soon as he left the cover of his butte, and all the outlying members of the horde swarmed toward him with a yell, brandishing their spears and getting ready their bows as they rode.  It would clearly be impossible for him to cut his way through thirty warriors unless he received assistance from the train.  Would it come?  His evil conscience told him, without the least reason, that Thurstane would not help.  But from Coronado, whose life he had saved and whose evil work he had undertaken to do—­from this man, “greaser” as he was, he did expect a sally.  If it did not come, and if he should escape by some rare chance, he, Texas Smith, would murder the Mexican the first time he found him alone, so help him God!

While he thought and cursed he flew.  But his goal was still five hundred yards away, and the nearest redskins were within two hundred yards, when he saw a rescuing charge shoot out from the wagons.  Coronado led it.  In this foxy nature the wolf was not wanting, and under strong impulse he could be somewhat of a Pizarro.  He had no starts of humanity nor of real chivalry, but he had family pride and personal vanity, and he was capable of the fighting fury.  When Thurstane had given the word to advance, Coronado had put himself forward gallantly.

“Stay here,” he said to the officer; “guard the train with your infantry.  I am a caballero, and I will do a caballero’s work,” he added, rising proudly in his stirrups.  “Come on, you villains!” was his order to the six Mexicans.

All abreast, spread out like a skirmish line, the seven horsemen clattered over the plain, making for the point where Texas Smith was about to plunge among the whirling and caracoling Apaches.

Now came the crisis of the day.  The moment the sixty or seventy Apaches near the mouth of the canon saw Coronado set out on his charge, they raised a yell of joy over the error of the emigrants in dividing their forces, and plunged straight at the wagons.  In half a minute two wild, irregular, and yet desperate combats were raging.