d, bellowing animals
attracted little of her notice. She was not hard-hearted; she was simply
almost insane. In this state of abnormal exaltation she continued until
the party reached the quiet and safety of the Moqui pueblos.

Then there was a change; exhausted nature required either apathy or death;
and for two days she lay in a sort of stupor, sleeping a great deal, and
crying often when awake. The only person capable of rousing her was
Sergeant Meyer, who made expeditions to the other pueblos for news of
Thurstane, and brought her news of his hopes and his failures.

After a three days' rest Coronado decided to resume his journey by moving
southward toward the Bernalillo trail. Freed from Thurstane, he no longer
contemplated losing Clara in the desert, but meant to marry her, and
trusted that he could do it. Two of his wagons he presented to the Moquis,
who were, of course, delighted with the acquisition, although they had no
more use for wheeled vehicles than for gunboats. With only four wagons,
his animals were more than sufficient, and the train made tolerably rapid
progress, in spite of the roughness of the country.

The land was still a wonder. The water wizards of old had done their
grotesque utmost here. What with sculpturing and frescoing, they had made
that most fantastic wilderness the Painted Desert. It looked like a
mirage. The travellers had an impression that here was some atmospheric
illusion. It seemed as if it could not last five minutes if the sun should
shine upon it. There were crowding hills so variegated and gay as to put
one in mind of masses of soap-bubbles. But the coloring was laid on
fifteen hundred feet deep. It consisted of sandstone marls, red, blue,
green, orange, purple, white, brown, lilac, and yellow, interstratified
with magnesian limestone in bands of purple, bluish-white, and mottled,
with here and there shining flecks or great glares of gypsum.

Among the more delicate wonders of the scene were the petrified trunks
which had once been pines and cedars, but which were now flint or jasper.
The washings of geologic aeons have exposed to view immense quantities of
these enchanted forests. Fragments of silicified trees are not only strewn
over the lowlands, but are piled by the hundred cords at the bases of
slopes, seeming like so much drift-wood from wonder-lands far up the
stream of time. Generally they are in short bits, broken square across the
grain, as if sawed. Some are jasp