“You saw some one follow Daniel into camp?” my uncle broke in, anxiously.  But no threatening peril ever hurried Rex Krane’s speech.

“Yes, and I also followed some one; but I lost him in this ink-well of a hole, and I was waitin’ till he left so I could put the cat out, an’ shut the door, when you cut across the river.  I’ve been sittin’ round now to see that nothin’ broke loose till you got back.  Meantime, the thing sort of faded away.  I heard a horse gallopin’ off east, too.  Mebby they are outpostin’ to surround our retreat.  I didn’t wake Bill.  He’s got no more imagination than Bev.  If I had needed anybody I’d have stirred up Gail, here.”

In the dark I fairly swelled with pride, and from that moment Rex Krane was added to my little list of heroes that had been made up, so far, of Esmond Clarenden and Jondo and any army officer above the rank of captain.

“Krane, you’ll do.  I thought I had your correct measure back in Independence,” Uncle Esmond said, heartily.  “As to the boys, I can risk them; they are Clarendens.  My anxiety is for the little orphan girl.  She is only a child.  I couldn’t leave her behind us, and I must not let a hair of her head be harmed.”

“She’s a right womanly little thing,” Rex Krane said, carelessly; but I wondered if in the dark his eyes might not have had the same look they had had at noon when he turned to Mat sitting beside my uncle.  Maybe back at Boston he had a little sister of his own like her.  Anyhow, I decided then that men’s words and faces do not always agree.

Again the roar of voices broke out, and we scrambled from the wagon and quickly gathered our company together.

“What did you find out?” Jondo asked.

“We must clear out of here right away and get through to the other side of town and be off by daylight without anybody knowing it.  They are a gang of ugly Mexicans who would not let us cross the river if we should wait till morning.  They have already sent a spy over here, and they are waiting for him to report.”

“Where is he now?” Bill Banney broke in.

“They’s two of him—­I know there is,” Rex Krane declared.  “One of him went east, to cut us off I reckon; an’ t’other faded into nothin’ toward the river.  Kind of a double deal, looks to me.”

Both men looked doubtingly at the young man; but without further words, Jondo took command, and we knew that the big plainsman would put through whatever Esmond Clarenden had planned.  For Aunty Boone was right when she said, “They tote together.”

“We must snake these wagons through town, as though we didn’t belong together, but we mustn’t get too far apart, either.  And remember now, Clarenden, if anybody has to stop and visit with ’em, I’ll do it myself,” Jondo said.

“Why can’t we ride the ponies?  We can go faster and scatter more,” I urged, as we hastily broke camp.

“He is right, Esmond.  They haven’t been riding all their lives for nothing,” Jondo agreed, as Esmond Clarenden turned hesitatingly toward Mat Nivers.