Though the ground was still hot and smoking in places, they were able to make their way along, and, after a while, they passed out of the burned area, and came into a region which the fire had not touched.
“There the clever rascal is,” said the scout. “Look at him!—as peaceful as a lamb!”
His horse had broken the rope by which it had been tied, had run from the fire, and was now grazing peacefully, not a hundred yards from where the scout and the girl stood.
The girl had asked many questions about her uncle, about his illness, and about the emeralds; but she began to talk of these matters again, when they got beyond the burned area, showing that she had thought of nothing else all the time, even when she seemed to be thinking only of getting away from the fire.
The scout went over the story again, giving all the details, until, by the aid of her imagination, Lena was able to reconstruct the whole thing.
“About those emeralds,” she said. “What am I to do with them?”
“Whatever you please. It was your uncle’s desire for you to have them, so that you might be freed from all want, educate yourself to whatever extent you desired, travel, and enjoy life. It was a satisfaction to him to believe that you would get them, and that they would make you independent. I promised him faithfully that I would deliver them into your hands; and if you hadn’t happened back here as you did, and I had escaped from that fire, it was my intention to return immediately to the fort for the purpose of delivering them to you personally.”
“You are very kind,” she said. “You wouldn’t trust them to the express or to the stages?”
“I should not have felt it safe to do so.”
“The country is full of road agents.”