“Not for you?” repeated Boyle.

Miss Cantire stopped short, with a pretty flush of color and an adorable laugh.  “There!  I’ve done it, so I might as well tell the whole story.  But I can trust you, Mr. Boyle.” (She faced him with clear, penetrating eyes.) “Well,” she laughed again, “you might have noticed that we had a quantity of baggage of passengers who didn’t go?  Well, those passengers never intended to go, and hadn’t any baggage!  Do you understand?  Those innocent-looking heavy trunks contained carbines and cartridges from our post for Fort Taylor”—­she made him a mischievous curtsy—­“under my charge!  And,” she added, enjoying his astonishment, “as you saw, I brought them through safe to the station, and had them transferred to this coach with less fuss and trouble than a commissary transport and escort would have made.”

“And they were in this coach?” repeated Boyle abstractedly.

“Were?  They are!” said Miss Cantire.

“Then the sooner I get you back to your treasure again the better,” said Boyle with a laugh.  “Does Foster know it?”

“Of course not!  Do you suppose I’d tell it to anybody but a stranger to the place?  Perhaps, like you, I know when and to whom to impart information,” she said mischievously.

Whatever was in Boyle’s mind he had space for profound and admiring astonishment of the young lady before him.  The girlish simplicity and trustfulness of her revelation seemed as inconsistent with his previous impression of her reserve and independence as her girlish reasoning and manner was now delightfully at variance with her tallness, her aquiline nose, and her erect figure.  Mr. Boyle, like most short men, was apt to overestimate the qualities of size.

They walked on for some moments in silence.  The ascent was comparatively easy but devious, and Boyle could see that this new detour would take them still some time to reach the summit.  Miss Cantire at last voiced the thought in his own mind.  “I wonder what induced them to turn off here? and if you hadn’t been so clever as to discover their tracks, how could we have found them?  But,” she added, with feminine logic, “that, of course, is why they fired those shots.”

Boyle remembered, however, that the shots came from another direction, but did not correct her conclusion.  Nevertheless he said lightly:  “Perhaps even Foster might have had an Indian scare.”

“He ought to know ‘friendlies’ or ‘government reservation men’ better by this time,” said Miss Cantire; “however, there is something in that.  Do you know,” she added with a laugh, “though I haven’t your keen eyes I’m gifted with a keen scent, and once or twice I’ve thought I smelt Indians—­that peculiar odor of their camps, which is unlike anything else, and which one detects even in their ponies.  I used to notice it when I rode one; no amount of grooming could take it away.”

“I don’t suppose that the intensity or degree of this odor would give you any idea of the hostile or friendly feelings of the Indians towards you?” asked Boyle grimly.