ted. "I cannot tell it."

"You must, Juan!" murmured my lady.

To say "no" to her was impossible. I went on with the tale as best I
could in my rude French, and related how Brown and I had made our way up
the icy ascent of the side ravine. As I described the cutting of
footholds and our slow clambering higher and higher out of the chasm,
Alisanda's eyes widened and her hands met in a convulsive clasp. Before
I had finished she was breathing hard with excitement. The other ladies
were hardly less thrilled. Women are so easily startled by the recital
of dangers which a man risks as a matter of course.

But when I came to our terrible journey in the valley of starvation it
was not alone the ladies who were moved. Aside from Walker I felt that
all my listeners were friends, and I could not forego the opportunity to
describe fully the heroic fortitude with which my indomitable friend and
his men had endured their sufferings and struggled on against all odds.
If my eyes were wet when I told of the injuries of the poor lads Sparks
and Dougherty, there was at least one present who did not consider my
emotion unmanly. She bowed her head in her hands and wept.

I went on to tell how the unfortunate men had sent the bones from their
frozen feet, in pitiful appeal to their commander, and how they were
being brought after us, maimed and unable to walk. It was not my desire
to harrow my listeners needlessly, but I knew that the Malgares and the
Vallois were among the richest families in New Spain, and felt certain
that to tell them the piteous truth would insure the injured men the
best of care so long as they should be detained by the Governor-General.

Having covered this point, I went back and described how we had fought
our way on up the desolate plateau and across the Sangre de Cristo, and
had at last found relief from toil and frost and famine in the broad
valley of the Rio del Norte.

"So there was an end of our hardships," I concluded. "We had crossed the
barrier."

"You had crossed the barrier!" murmured my lady, and through the tears
which still glistened in her eyes she shot me a glance that repaid in
full for all my months of journeying to find her.

"But that is not the end, Senor Robinson!" cried Dona Dolores, with the
sweet petulance of a young bride. "Faciendo, you must let them know how
Don Juan left his companions and came alone all the way to Santa Fe,
fearless of the hideous Apaches."

"The Apaches do no