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 Peña 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 Fé. 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.

It is strange that so many men who are morally in a state of decomposition