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Updated: May 17, 2025
Thurstane, gifted with much of the sympathy of the great Teutonic race for nature, was far more profoundly affected. The overshadowing altitudes and majesties of the chasm moved him as might oratorios or other solemn music.
Thurstane, to be sure, was in the next room and in sight; but he had with him the chief, two other leading Moquis, and his chance Navajo interpreter; they were making a map of the San Juan country by scratching with an arrow-point on the clay floor; everybody was interested in the matter, and there was a pretty smart jabbering.
For hours, gazing at lofty masses, vast outlines, prodigious assemblages of rocky imagery, endless strokes of natural frescoing, the three adventurers either exchanged rare words of astonishment, or lay in reveries which transported them beyond earth. What Thurstane felt he could only express by recalling random lines of the "Paradise Lost."
He turned and presented his rifle; just then, too, a protecting volley burst from the rampart; another Apache fell, and the rest retreated. "Capm, it's all right," said Texas, as he reascended the ruin. "We're squar with 'em." "We might have broken it up," returned Thurstane sullenly. "No, Capm. You don't know 'em. They'd got thar noses p'inted to torture that gal.
When Thurstane got into the cabin, he found it pretty nearly clear of water, the steward having opened doors and trap-doors and drawn off the deluge into the hold. The first object that he saw, or could see, was Clara, curled up in a chair which was lashed to the mast, and secured in it by a lanyard.
Before the second day of this suspense was over, Aunt Maria had begun to make herself obnoxious. She hinted that Thurstane knew what he was about; that the river was his easiest road to his station; that, in short, he had deserted. Clara flamed up indignantly and replied, "I know him better." "Why, what has he got to do with us?" reasoned Aunt Maria. "He doesn't belong to our party."
Turning his back, Thurstane walked away from this cruel and hated counsellor, not thinking at all of him however, but rather of the deep beneath, a refuge from trouble. We must slip back to his last adventure with Texas Smith, and learn a little of what happened to him then and up to the present time.
"Because I could have you set up by my sergeant and executed by my privates," continued Thurstane. "Capm, I reckon you're sound there," admitted Texas, with a slight flinch in his manner. "Now, then, do you want to fight a duel?" broke out the angry youngster, his pugnacity thoroughly getting the better of his wisdom. "We both have pistols."
The only thing now to be done, the only thing which first or last must be done, the only thing which fate insisted should be done, was to say "Yes." It was said. Never mind how. Thurstane heard it and understood it. Clara also heard it, as if it were not she who uttered it, but some overruling power, or some inward possession, which spoke for her. She heard it and she acquiesced in it.
Indeed the Apaches had stopped their pursuit as soon as they found that the fugitive was beyond arrow shot, and were now prancing slowly back to their bivouac. After one angry look at them from the wall, Thurstane leaped down and ran after Clara. "Oh!" she gasped, out of breath and almost faint. "Oh, how it has frightened me!"
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