Coronado observed the scene, and guessing how perilous the moment was, pushed forward his uncle to say good-by to Clara.  The old scoundrel kissed her hand; he did not dare to lift his one eye to her face; he kissed her hand and bowed himself out of reach.

“Farewell, Mr. Garcia,” called Aunt Maria.  “Poor, excellent old creature!  What a pity he can’t understand English!  I should so like to say something nice to him.  Farewell, Mr. Garcia.”

Garcia kissed his fat fingers to her, took off his sombrero, waved it, bowed a dozen times, and smiled like a scared devil.  Then, with other good-bys, delivered right and left from everybody to everybody, the train rumbled away.  Thurstane was about to accompany it out of the town when his clerk came to tell him that the board of survey required his immediate presence.  Cursing his hard fate, and wishing himself anything but an officer in the army, he waved a last farewell to Clara, and turned his back on her, perhaps forever.

Santa Fe is situated on the great central plateau of North America, seven thousand feet above the level of the sea.  Around it spreads an arid plain, sloping slightly where it approaches the Rio Grande, and bordered by mountains which toward the south are of moderate height, while toward the north they rise into fine peaks, glorious with eternal snow.  Although the city is in the latitude of Albemarle Sound, North Carolina, its elevation and its neighborhood to Alpine ranges give it a climate which is in the main cool, equable, and healthy.

The expedition moved across the plain in a southwesterly direction.  Coronado’s intention was to cross the Rio Grande at Pena Blanca, skirt the southern edge of the Jemez Mountains, reach San Isidoro, and then march northward toward the San Juan region.  The wagons were well fitted out with mules, and as Garcia had not chosen to send much merchandise by this risky route, they were light, so that the rate of progress was unusually rapid.  We cannot trouble ourselves with the minor incidents of the journey.  Taking it for granted that the Rio Grande was passed, that halts were made, meals cooked and eaten, nights passed in sleep, days in pleasant and picturesque travelling, we will leap into the desert land beyond San Isidoro.

The train was now seventy-five miles from Santa Fe.  Coronado had so pushed the pace that he had made this distance in the rather remarkable time of three days.  Of course his object in thus hurrying was to get so far ahead of Thurstane that the latter would not try to overtake him, or would get lost in attempting it.

Meanwhile he had not forgotten Garcia’s little plan, and he had even better remembered his own.  The time might come when he would be driven to lose Clara; it was very shocking to think of, however, and so for the present he did not think of it; on the contrary, he worked hard (much as he hated work) at courting her.