he heard a
gallop behind her, and, looking over her shoulder, she saw Coronado. She
did not want to be away from the train with him; but she must at all
hazards reach that group of rocks; something within impelled her. Better
mounted than she, he was soon by her side, and after a while struck out in
advance, saying, "I will look out for an ambush."

When Coronado reached the rocks he was fifty yards ahead of Clara. He made
the circuit of them at a slow canter; in so doing he discovered the
starving and fainted Thurstane lying in the high grass beneath a low shelf
of stone; he saw him, he recognized him, and in an instant he trembled
from head to foot. But such was his power of self-control that he did not
check his horse, nor cast a second look to see whether the man was alive
or dead. He turned the last stone in the group, met Clara with a forced
smile, and said gently, "There is nothing."

She reined up, drew a long sigh, thought that here was another foolish
hope crushed, and turned her horse's head toward the train.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The tread of Coronado's horse passing within fifteen feet of Thurstane
roused him from the troubled sleep into which he had sunk after his long
fainting fit.

Slowly he opened his eyes, to see nothing but long grasses close to his
face, and through them a haze of mountains and sky. His first moments of
wakening were so far from being a full consciousness that he did not
comprehend where he was. He felt very, very weak, and he continued to lie
still.

But presently he became aware of sounds; there was a trampling, and then
there were words; the voices of life summoned him to live. Instantly he
remembered two things: the starving comrades whom it was his duty to save,
and the loved girl whom he longed to find. Slowly and with effort,
grasping at the rock to aid his trembling knees, he rose to his feet just
as Clara turned her horse's head toward the plain.

Coronado threw a last anxious glance in the direction of the wretch whom
he meant to abandon to the desert. To his horror he saw a lean, smirched,
ghostly face looking at him in a dazed way, as if out of the blinding
shades of death. The quickness of this villain was so wonderful that one
is almost tempted to call it praiseworthy. He perceived at once that
Thurstane would be discovered, and that he, Coronado, must make the
discovery, or he might be charged with attempting to leave him to die.

"Good heavens!" he exclai