were the tracks of a train which had passed a year before.

"Shall we take a gallop?" said Coronado. "No danger of ambushes here."

Clara's eyes sparkled with youth's love of excitement, and the two horses
sprang off at speed toward the centre of the plateau. After a glorious
flight of five minutes, enjoyed for the most part in silence, as such
swift delights usually are, they dropped into a walk two miles ahead of
the wagons.

"That was magnificent," Clara of course said, her face flushed with
pleasure and exercise.

"You are wonderfully handsome," observed Coronado, with an air of thinking
aloud, which disguised the coarse directness of the flattery. In fact, he
was so dazzled by her brilliant color, the sunlight in her disordered
curls, and the joyous sparkling of her hazel eyes, that he spoke with an
ingratiating honesty.

Clara, who was in one of her unconscious and innocent moods, simply
replied, "I suppose people are always handsome enough when they are
happy."

"Then I ought to be lovely," said Coronado. "I am happier than I ever was
before."

"Coronado, you look very well," observed Clara, turning her eyes on him
with a grave expression which rather puzzled him. "This out-of-door life
has done you good."