"It is a desert," continued Coronado in a kind of scream of horror. "It is
a waterless desert, without a blade of grass, and haunted from end to end
by Apaches. My little cousin would die of thirst and hunger. She would be
hunted and scalped. O my God! overland!"

"Emigrant parties are going all the while," ventured Thurstane, very angry
at such extravagant opposition, but merely looking a little stiff.

"Certainly. You are right, Lieutenant," bowed Coronado. "They do go. But
how many perish on the way? They march between the unburied and withered
corpses of their predecessors. And what a journey for a woman--for a lady
accustomed to luxury--for my little cousin! I beg your pardon, my dear
Lieutenant Thurstane, for disagreeing with you. My advice is--the
isthmus."

"I have, of course, nothing, to say," admitted the officer, returning
Coronado's bow. "The family must decide."

"Certainly, the isthmus, the steamers," went on the fluent Mexican. "You
sail to Panama. You have an easy and safe land trip of a few days. Then
steamers again. Poff! you are there. By all means, the isthmus."

We must allot a few more words of description to this Don Carlos Coronado.
Let no one expect a stage Spaniard, with the air of a matador or a
guerrillero, who wears only picturesque and outlandish costumes, and
speaks only magniloquent Castilian. Coronado was dressed, on this spring
morning, precisely as American dandies then dressed for summer promenades
on Broadway. His hat was a fine panama with a broad black ribbon; his
frock-coat was of thin cloth, plain, dark, and altogether civilized; his
light trousers were cut gaiter-fashion, and strapped under the instep; his