"Daniel Boone went out on scout duty--self-elected. You know she
considers that the earth was made for her to walk on when she chooses to
use it that way. She spied trouble ahead and came back, and gave me the
key to the west door of Council Grove so I could get out early," my
uncle replied.

"I reckoned as much," Rex declared.

In the dark I could feel Esmond Clarenden give a start.

"What do you mean?" he inquired.

"Oh, I saw the fat lady start out, so I followed her, but I located the
nest of Mexicans before she did, and got a good deal out of their
drunken jargon. And then I cat-footed it back after a snaky-looking,
black Spaniard that seemed to be following her. There were three of us
in a row, but the devil hasn't got the hindmost one, not yet--that's
me."

"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.