habit of incessant responsibility
that he could not lie down to rest until he had visited the camp and
examined personally into probabilities of attack and means of defence. As
he descended the stony path which scored the side of the butte, his
anxiety was greatly increased by the appearance of a party of armed Moquis
rushing like deer down the steep slope, as if to repel an attack.

CHAPTER XIV.

Thurstane found the caravan in excellent condition, the mules being
tethered at the reservoir half-way up the acclivity, and the wagons parked
and guarded as usual, with Weber for officer of the night.

"We are in no tanger, Leftenant," said the sergeant. "A large barty of
these bueplo beeble has shust gone to the vront. They haf daken atfandage
of our bresence to regover a bortion of the blain. I haf sent Kelly along
to look after them a leetle und make them keep a goot watch. We are shust
as safe as bossible. Und to-morrow we will basture the animals. It is a
goot blace for a gamp, Leftenant, und we shall pe all right in a tay or
two."

"Does Shubert's leg need attention?"

"No. It is shust nothing. Shupert is for tuty."

"And you feel perfectly able to take care of yourselves here?"

"Berfectly, Leftenant."

"Forty rounds apiece!"

"They are issued, Leftenant."

"If you are attacked, fire heavily; and if the attack is sharp, retreat to
the bluff. Never mind the wagons; they can be recovered."

"I will opey your instructions, Leftenant."

Thurstane was feverish and exhausted; he knew that Weber was as good a
soldier as himself; and still he went back to the village with an anxious
heart; such is the tenderness of the military conscience as to _duty_.

By the time he reached the upper landing of the wall of the pueblo it was
sunset, and he paused to gaze at a magnificent landscape, the _replica_ of
the one which he had seen at sunrise. There were buttes, valleys, and
canons, the vast and lofty plateaus of the north, the ranges of the Navajo
country, the Sierra del Carrizo, and the ice peaks of Monte San Francisco.
It was sublime, savage, beautiful, horrible. It seemed a revelation from
some other world. It was a nightmare of nature.

Clara met him on the landing with the smile which she now often gave him.
"I was anxious about you," she said. "You were too weak to go down there.
You look very tired. Do come and eat, and then rest. You will make
yourself sick. I was quite anxious about you."

It was a