"Coronado, I will tell you the truth. That man is a murderer. I know it."
Coronado just took the time to draw one long breath, and then replied with sublime effrontery, "I fear so. I learn that he has told horrible stories about himself. Well, to tell the truth, I have discharged him."
"Oh, Coronado!" gasped Clara, not knowing whether to believe him or not.
"Shall I confess to you," he continued, "that I suspect him of having weakened that towline so as to send our friend down the San Juan?"
"He never went near the boat," heroically answered Clara, at the same time wishing she could see Coronado's face.
"Of course not. He probably hired some one. I fear our rancheros are none too good to be bribed. I will confess to you, my cousin, that ever since that day I have been watching Smith."
"Oh, Coronado!" repeated Clara. She was beginning to believe this prodigious liar, and to be all the more alarmed because she did believe him. "So you have sent him away? I am so glad. Oh, Coronado, I thank you. But help me look for him now. I want to know if he is in camp."
It is almost impossible to do Coronado justice. While he was pretending to aid Clara in searching for Texas Smith, he knew that the man had gone out to murder Thurstane. We must remember that the man was almost as wretched as he was wicked; if punishment makes amends for crime, his was in part absolved. As he walked about with the girl he thought over and over, Will it kill her? He tried to answer, No. Another voice persisted in saying, Yes. In his desperation he at last replied, Let it!
We must follow Texas Smith. He had not started on his errand until he had received five hundred dollars in gold, and five hundred in a draft on San Francisco. Then he had himself proposed, "I mought quit the train, an' take my own resk acrost the plains." This being agreed to, he had mounted his horse, slipped away through the willows, and ridden into the desert after Thurstane.
He knew the trail; he had been from Cactus Pass to Diamond River and back again; he knew it at least as well as the man whose life he was tracking. He thought he remembered the spring where Glover had broken down, and felt pretty sure that it could not be less than twenty miles from the camp. Mounted as he was, he could put himself ahead of Thurstane and ambush him in some ravine. Of a sudden he laughed. It was not a burst of merriment, but a grim wrinkling of his dark, haggard cheeks, followed by a hissing chuckle. Texas seldom laughed, and with good reason, for it was enough to scare people.