The poor woman, no longer youthful, it must be remembered, was indeed badly jaded.  Her face was haggard; her general get-up was in something like scarecrow disorder; she didn’t even care how she looked.  So fagged was she that she had once or twice dozed in the saddle and come near falling.

“It was outrageous to bring us here,” she went on pettishly.  “Ladies shouldn’t be dragged into such hardships.”

Thurstane wanted to say that he was not responsible for the journey; but he would not, because it did not seem manly to shift all the blame upon Coronado.

“I am very, very sorry,” was his reply.  “It is a frightful journey.”

“Oh, frightful, frightful!” sighed Aunt Maria, twisting her aching back.

“But it will soon be over,” added the officer.  “Only twenty miles more to the river.”

“The river!  It seems to me that I could live if I could see a river.  Oh, this desert!  These perpetual rocks!  Not a green thing to cool one’s eyes.  Not a drop of water.  I seem to be drying up, like a worm in the sunshine.”

“Is there no water in the flasks?” asked Thurstane.

“Yes,” said Clara.  “But my aunt is feverish with fatigue.”

“What I want is the sight of it—­and rest,” almost whimpered the elder lady.

“Will our horses last?” asked Clara.  “Mine seems to suffer a great deal.”

“They must last,” replied Thurstane, grinding his teeth quite privately.  “Oh, yes, they will last,” he immediately added.  “Even if they don’t, we have mules enough.”

“But how they moan!  It makes me cringe to hear them.”

“Twenty miles more,” said Thurstane.  “Only six hours at the longest.  Only half a day.”

“It takes less than half a day for a woman to die,” muttered the nearly desperate Aunt Maria.

“Yes, when she sets about it,” returned the officer.  “But we haven’t set about it, Mrs. Stanley.  And we are not going to.”

The weary lady had no response ready for words of cheer; she leaned heavily over the pommel of her saddle and rode on in silence.

“Ain’t the same man she was,” slyly observed Phineas Glover with a twist of his queer physiognomy.

Thurstane, though not fond of Mrs. Stanley, would not now laugh at her expense, and took no notice of the sarcasm.  Glover, fearful lest he had offended, doubled the gravity of his expression and tacked over to a fresh subject.

“Shouldn’t know whether to feel proud ’f myself or not, ’f I’d made this country, Capm.  Depends on what ’twas meant for.  If ’twas meant to live in, it’s the poorest outfit I ever did see.  If ’twas meant to scare folks, it’s jest up to the mark.  ’Nuff to frighten a crow into fits.  Capm, it fairly seems more than airthly; puts me in mind ’f things in the Pilgrim’s Progress—­only worse.  Sh’d say it was like five thousin’ Valleys ’f the Shadow ’f Death tangled together.  Tell ye, believe Christian ’d