tage and followed Loring down the murky stream, only just in time to
catch the steamer, but Turnbull paid faint heed. Loring was still weak,
he said, and a man of sensitive honor might well be wrathful at such
insinuations.

And now as Loring clung to the rail upon the lofty deck and gazed out
over the waste of tumbling waters toward the barren shores, he was
thinking deeply of that letter, of the strange bent of mind that could
dictate such unjustifiable suggestion--if not accusation. He was
thinking, too, of Pancha and that little packet in the purser's safe,
when suddenly that officer himself came popping up the narrow stairway
and poked his unprotected head into the whistling wind.

"Lieutenant, come below and have a bite while we're here off Ildefonso.
We'll be turning handsprings in half an hour," and Loring followed to
the steward's cuddy where a smoking luncheon awaited them, and the
silent soldier fell to with the appetite that follows fever. Purser and
steward looked on with admiration.

"I'll prescribe a course of typhoid to the next friend of mine that
contemplates a voyage like this," said the former presently. "It made
you invulnerable, but was it typhoid?"

"No--some head trouble."

"Sunstruck?" queried the purser. "Hot as it is, that don't often happen
in Arizona--too dry."

"Struck, but not by sun--pistol-butt, perhaps," said Loring. "Night
attack of Gila Bend--robbers."

"Oh, Lord, yes! I remember. I heard about that," said the genial purser.
"Got away with some money, didn't they?"

"No money, but with a valuable package," and the blue eyes were fixed
intently on the purser as he spoke, while the steward uncorked another
pint of Margaux. "A tin box about eight by three, containing a watch and
jewels. You sometimes get such for safekeeping, do you not?"

"Got one now," was the prompt reply, as the officer smacked his lips and
held out his glass for another sip of the red wine of France. "Old
Escalante gave it to me at Guaymas. It's the little senorita's."

CHAPTER XII.

The afternoon and night that followed brought little comfort to the
cabin passengers. Not till nearly dark did the steamer find the shelter
of another island, and all the intervening hours she wallowed in the
trough of the sea, with the wind abeam, and by the time the heights of
Carmen Island loomed between them and the red glow of the sunset skies,
Turnbull had thrice wished himself in hotter climes than even Arizo