d that the latter
must join his new command as soon as possible. He did not want him
courting Clara all across the continent; and he, did not want him saving
her from being lost, if it should become necessary to lose her.

"I earnestly hope that we shall not be deprived of your company," he said.

Thurstane, in profound thought, simply bowed his acknowledgments. A few
minutes later, as he rose to return to his quarters, he said, with an air
of solemn resolution, "If I can possibly go with you, I _will_."

All the next day and evening Coronado was in and out of the Van Diemen
house. Had there been a mail for the ladies, he would have brought it to
them; had it contained a letter from California, he would have abstracted
and burnt it. He helped them pack for the journey; he made an inventory of
the furniture and found storeroom for it; he was a valet and a spy in one.
Meantime Garcia hurried up his train, and hired suitable muleteers for the
animals and suitable assassins for the travellers. Thurstane was also
busy, working all day and half of the night over his government accounts,
so that he might if possible get off with Clara.

Coronado thought of making interest with the post-commandant to have
Thurstane kept a few days in Santa Fe. But the post-commandant was a grim
and taciturn old major, who looked him through and through with a pair of
icy gray eyes, and returned brief answers to his musical commonplaces.
Coronado did not see how he could humbug him, and concluded not to try it.
The attempt might excite suspicion; the major might say, "How is this your
business?" So, after a little unimportant tattle, Coronado made his best
bow to the old fellow, and hurried off to oversee his so-called cousin.

In the evening he brought Garcia to call on the ladies. Aunt Maria was
rather surprised and shocked to see such an excellent man look so much
like an infamous scoundrel. "But good people are always plain," she
reasoned; and so she was as cordial to him as one can be in English to a
saint who understands nothing but Spanish. Garcia, instructed by Coronado,
could not bow low enough nor smile greasily enough at Aunt Maria. His dull
commonplaces moreover, were translated by his nephew into flowering
compliments for the lady herself, and enthusiastic professions of faith in
the superior intelligence and moral worth of all women. So the two got
along famously, although neither ever knew what the other had really said.

When