"I--I thank God we are not over there now," she said falteringly.
"Yes," he admitted. "They will be creeping in closer; they will not wait much longer. Hard as I have worked, I can't realize yet that we are out of those toils."
"You did not expect to succeed?"
"No; frankly I did not; all I could do was hope--take the one chance left. The slightest accident meant betrayal. I am ashamed of being so weak just now, but it was the strain. You see," he explained carefully, "I 've been scouting through hostile Indian country mostly day and night for nearly a week, and then this thing happened. No matter how iron a man is his nerve goes back on him after a while."
"I know."
"It was n't myself," he went on doggedly, "but it was the knowledge of having to take care of you. That was what made me worry; that, and knowing a single misstep, the slightest noise, would bring those devils on us, where I could n't fight, where there was just one thing I could do."
There was silence, her hands pressed to her face, her eyes fixed on him. Then she questioned him soberly.
"You mean, kill me?"
"Sure," he answered simply, without looking around; "I would have had to do it--just as though you were a sister of mine."
Her hands reached out and clasped his, and he glanced aside at her face, seeing it clearly.
"I--I thought you would," she said, her voice trembling. "I--I was going to ask you once before I was hurt, but--but I could n't, and somehow I trusted you from the first, when you got in." She hesitated, and then asked, "How did you know I was Molly McDonald? You never asked."
The Sergeant's eyes smiled, turning away from her face to stare out again across the river.
"Because I had seen your picture."
"My picture? But you told us you were from Fort Union?"
"Yes; that is my station, only I had been sent to the cantonment on the Cimarron with despatches. Your father was in command there, and worried half to death about you. He could not leave the post, and the only officer remaining there with him was a disabled cavalry captain. Every man he could trust was out on scouting service. He took a chance on me. Maybe he liked my looks, I don't know; more probably, he judged I would n't be a sergeant and entrusted with those despatches I 'd just brought in, if I was n't considered trustworthy. Anyhow I had barely fallen asleep when the orderly called me, and that was what was wanted--that I ride north and head you off."