"Oh, Coronado!" repeated Clara. She was beginning to believe this

prodigious liar, and to be all the more alarmed because she did believe
him. "So you have sent him away? I am so glad. Oh, Coronado, I thank you.
But help me look for him now. I want to know if he is in camp."

It is almost impossible to do Coronado justice. While he was pretending to
aid Clara in searching for Texas Smith, he knew that the man had gone out
to murder Thurstane. We must remember that the man was almost as wretched
as he was wicked; if punishment makes amends for crime, his was in part
absolved. As he walked about with the girl he thought over and over, Will
it kill her? He tried to answer, No. Another voice persisted in saying,
Yes. In his desperation he at last replied, Let it!

We must follow Texas Smith. He had not started on his errand until he had
received five hundred dollars in gold, and five hundred in a draft on San
Francisco. Then he had himself proposed, "I mought quit the train, an'
take my own resk acrost the plains." This being agreed to, he had mounted
his horse, slipped away through the willows, and ridden into the desert
after Thurstane.

He knew the trail; he had been from Cactus Pass to Diamond River and back
again; he knew it at least as well as the man whose life he was tracking.
He thought he remembered the spring where Glover had broken down, and felt
pretty sure that it could not be less than twenty miles from the camp.
Mounted as he was, he could put himself ahead of Thurstane and ambush him
in some ravine. Of a sudden he laughed. It was not a burst of merriment,
but a grim wrinkling of his dark, haggard cheeks, followed by a hissing
chuckle. Texas seldom laughed, and with good reason, for it was enough to
scare people.

"Mought be done," he muttered. "Mought git the better of 'em all that way.
Shute, 'an then yell. The greasers'ud think it was Injuns, an' they'd
travel for camp. Then I'd stop the spare mules an' start for Californy."

For Texas this plan was a stroke of inspiration. He was not an intelligent
scoundrel. All his acumen, though bent to the one point of roguery, had
barely sufficed hitherto to commit murders and escape hanging. He had
never prospered financially, because he lacked financial ability. He was a
beast, with all a tiger's ferocity, but with hardly more than a tiger's
intelligence. He was a savage numskull. An Apache Tonto would have been
more than his match in the arts of murder, and very nearly his match in
the arts of civilization.

Instead of following Thurstane directly, he made a circuit of several
miles through a ravine, galloped across a wide grassy plain, and pulled up
among some rounded hillocks. Here, as he calculated, he was fifteen miles
from camp, and five from the spot where lay Glover and Sweeny. The moon
had already gone down and left the desert to the starlight. Posting
himself behind a thicket, he waited for half an hour or more, listening
with indefatigable attention.

He had no scruples, but he had some fears. If he should miss, the
lieutenant would fire back, and he was cool enough to fire with effect.
Well, he wouldn't miss; what should he miss for? As for the greasers, they
would run at the first shot. Nevertheless, he did occasionally muddle over
the idea of going off to California with his gold, and without doing this
particular job. What kept him to his agreement was the hope of stealing
the spare mules, and the fear that the draft might not be paid if he
shirked his work.

"I s'pose I must show his skelp," thought Texas, "or they won't hand over
the dust."

At last there was a sound; he had set his ambush just right; there were
voices in the distance; then hoofs in the grass. Next he saw something; it
was a man on a mule; yes, and it was the right man.

He raised his cocked rifle and aimed, sighting the head, three rods away.
Suddenly his horse whinnied, and then the mule of the other reared; but
the bullet had already sped. Down went Thurstane in the darkness, while,
with an Apache yell, Texas Smith burst from his ambush and charged upon
the greasers.




CHAPTER XXXIV.


The chase after the spare mules carried Texas Smith several miles from the
scene of the ambush, so that when he at last caught the frightened beasts,
he decided not to go back and cut Thurstane's throat, but to set off at
once westward and put himself by morning well on the road to California.

Meanwhile, the two muleteers continued their flight at full gallop, and
eventually plunged into camp with a breathless story to the effect that
Apaches had attacked them, captured the spare mules, and killed the
lieutenant. Coronado, no more able to sleep than Satan, was the first to
hear their tale.

"Apaches!" he said, surprised and incredulous. Then, guessing at what had
happened, he immediately added, "Those devils again! We must push on, the
moment we can see."

Apaches! It was a capital idea. He had an excuse now for hurrying away
from a spot which he had stained with murder. If any one demanded that
Thurstane's body should be sought for, or that those incumbrances Glover
and Sweeny should be rescued, he could respond, Apaches! Apaches! He gave
orders to commence preparations for moving at the first dawn.

He expected and feared that Clara would oppose the advance in some trying
way. But one of the fugitives relieved him by blurting out the death of
Thurstane, and sending her into spasms of alternate hysterics and fainting
which lasted for hours. Lying in a wagon, her head in the lap of Mrs.
Stanley, a sick, very sick, dangerously sick girl, she was jolted along as
easily as a corpse.

Coronado rode almost constantly beside her wagon, inquiring about her
every few minutes, his face changing with contradictory emotions, wishing
she would die and hoping she would live, loving and hating her in the same
breath. Whenever she came to herself and recognized him, she put out her
hands and implored, "Oh, Coronado, take me back there!"

"Apaches!" growled Coronado, and spurred away repeating his lie to
himself, "Apaches! Apaches!"

Then he checked his horse and rode anew to her side, hoping that he might
be able to reason with her.

"Oh, take me back!" was all the response he could obtain. "Take me back
and let me die there."

"Would you have us all die?" he shouted--"like Pepita!"

"Don't scold her," begged Aunt Maria, who was sobbing like a child. "She
doesn't know what she is asking."

But Clara knew too much; at the word _Pepita_ she guessed the torture
scene; and then it came into her mind that Thurstane might be even now at
the stake. She immediately broke into screams, which ended in convulsions
and a long fit of insensibility.

"It is killing her," wailed Aunt Maria. "Oh, my child! my child!"

Coronado spurred at full speed for a mile, muttering to the desert, "Let
it kill her! let it!"

At last he halted for the train to overtake him, glanced anxiously at
Clara's wagon, saw that Mrs. Stanley was still bending over her, guessed
that she was still alive, drew a sigh of relief, and rode on alone.

"Oh, this love-making!" sighed Aunt Maria scores of times, for she had at
last learned of the engagement. "When will my sex get over the weakness?
It kills them, and they like it."

That night Clara could not sleep, and kept Coronado awake with her
moanings. All the next day she lay in a semi-unconsciousness which was
partly lethargy and partly fever. It was well; at all events he could bear
it so--bear it better than when she was crying and praying for death. The
next night she fell into such a long silence of slumber that he came
repeatedly to her wagon to hearken if she still breathed. Youth and a
strong constitution were waging a doubtful battle to rescue her from the
despair which threatened to rob her of either life or reason.

So the journey continued. Henceforward the trail followed Bill Williams's
river to the Colorado, tracked that stream northward to the Mohave valley,
and, crossing there, took the line of the Mohave river toward California.
It was a prodigious pilgrimage still, and far from being a safe one. The
Mohaves, one of the tallest and bravest races known, from six feet to six
and a half in height, fighting hand to hand with short clubs, were not
perfectly sure to be friendly. Coronado felt that, if ever he got his wife
and his fortune, he should have earned them. He was resolute, however;
there was no flinching yet in this versatile, yet obstinate nature; he was
as wicked and as enduring as a Pizarro.

We will not make the journey; we must suppose it. Weeks after the desert
had for a second time engulfed Thurstane, a coasting schooner from Santa
Barbara entered the Bay of San Francisco, having on board Clara, Mrs.
Stanley, and Coronado.

The latter is on deck now, smoking his eternal cigarito without knowing
it, and looking at the superb scenery without seeing it. A landscape
mirrored in the eye of a horse has about as much effect on the brain
within as a landscape mirrored in the eye of Coronado. He is a Latin; he
has a fine ear for music, and he would delight in museums of painting and
sculpture; but he has none of the passion of the sad, grave, imaginative
Anglican race for nature. Mountains, deserts, seas, and storms are to him
obstacles and hardships. He has no more taste for them than had Ulysses.

He has agonized with sea-sickness during the voyage, and this is the first
day that he has found tolerable. Once more he is able to eat and stand up;
able to think, devise, resolve, and execute; able, in short, to be
Coronado. Look at the little, sunburnt, sinewy, earnest, enduring man;
study his diplomatic countenance, serious and yet courteous, full of
gravity and yet ready for gayety; notice his ready smile and gracious wave
of the hand as he salutes the skipper. He has been through horrors; he has
fought a tremendous fight of passion, crime, and peril; yet he scarcely
shows a sign of it. There is some such lasting stuff in him as goes to
make the Bolivars, Francias, and Lopez, the restless and indefatigable
agitators of the Spanish-American communities. You cannot help
sympathizing with him somewhat, because of his energy and bottom. You are
tempted to say that he deserves to win.

He has made some progress in his conspiracy to entrap love and a fortune.
It must be understood that the two muleteers persisted in their story
concerning Apaches, and that consequently Clara has come to think of
Thurstane as dead. Meantime Coronado, after the first two days of wild
excitement, has conducted himself with rare intelligence, never alarming
her with talk of love, always courteous, kind, and useful. Little by
little he has worn away her suspicions that he planned murder, and her
only remaining anger against him is because he did not attempt to search
for Thurstane; but even for that she is obliged to see some excuse in the
terrible word "Apaches."

"I have had no thought but for _her_ safety," Coronado often said to Mrs.
Stanley, who as often repeated the words to Clara. "I have made mistakes,"
he would go on. "The San Juan journey was one. I will not even plead
Garcia's instructions to excuse it. But our circumstances have been
terrible. Who could always take the right step amid such trials? All I ask
is charity. If humility deserves mercy, I deserve it."

Coronado even schooled himself into expressing sympathy with Clara for the
loss of Thurstane. He spoke of him as her affianced, eulogized his
character, admitted that he had not formerly done him justice, hinting
that this blindness had sprung from jealousy, and so alluded to his own
affection. These things he said at first to Aunt Maria, and she, his
steady partisan, repeated them to Clara, until at last the girl could bear
to hear them from Coronado. Sympathy! the bleeding heart must have it; it
will accept this balm from almost any hand, and it will pay for it in
gratitude and trust.

Thus in two months from the disappearance of Thurstane his rival had begun
to hope that he was supplanting him. Of course he had given up all thought
of carrying out the horrible plan with which he had started from Santa Fe.
Indeed, he began to have a horror of Garcia, as a man who had set him on a
wrong track and nearly brought him into folly and ruin. One might say that
Satan was in a state of mind to rebuke sin.

Let us now glance at Clara. She is seated beside Aunt Maria on the
quarter-deck of the schooner. Her troubles have changed her; only eighteen
years old, she has the air of twenty-four; her once rounded face is thin,
and her childlike sweetness has become tender gravity. When she entered on
this journey she resembled the girl faces of Greuze; now she is sometimes
a _mater amabilis_, and sometimes a _mater dolorosa_; for her grief has
been to her as a maternity. The great change, so far from diminishing her
beauty, has made her seem more fascinating and nobler. Her countenance has
had a new birth, and exhibits a more perfect soul.

We have hitherto had little more than a superficial view of the characters
of our people. Events, incidents, adventures, and even landscapes have
been the leading personages of the story, and have been to its human
individualities what the Olympian gods are to Greek and Trojan heroes in
the Iliad. Just as Jove or Neptune rules or thwarts Agamemnon and
Achilles, so the monstrous circumstances of the desert have overborne,
dwarfed, and blurred these travellers. It is only now, when they have
escaped from the _dii majores_, and have become for a brief period
tranquil free agents, that we can see them as they are. Even yet they are
not altogether untrammelled. Man is never quite himself; he is always
under some external influence, past or present; he is always being
governed, if not being created.

Clara, born anew of trouble, is admirable. There is a sweet, sedate, and
almost solemn womanliness about her, which even overawes Mrs. Stanley,
conscious of aunthood and strongmindedness, and insisting upon it that her
niece is "a mere child." It is a great victory to gain over a lady who has
that sort of self-confidence that if she had been a sunflower and obliged
to turn toward the sun for life, she would yet have believed that it was
she who made him shine. When Clara decides a matter Mrs. Stanley, while
still mentally saying "Young thing," feels nevertheless that her own
decision has been uttered. And in every successive resistance she is
overcome the easier, for habit is a conqueror.

They have just had a discussion. Aunt Maria wants Clara to stand on her
dignity in a hotel until old Munoz goes down on his marrow-bones, makes
her a handsome allowance, and agrees to leave her at least half his
fortune. Clara's reply is substantially, "He is my grandfather and the
proper head of my family. I think I ought to go straight to him and say,
Grandfather, here I am."

Beaten by this gentle conscientiousness, Aunt Maria endeavored to appeal
the matter to Coronado.

"I am so glad to see you enjoying your cigarito once more," she called to
him with as sweet a smile as if she didn't hate tobacco.

He left his smoking retreat amidships, took off his hat with a sort of
airy gravity, and approached them.

"Mr. Coronado, where do you propose to take us when we reach land?" asked
Aunt Maria.

"We will, if you please, go direct to my excellent relative's," was the
reply.

Aunt Maria held her head straight up, as if stiff-neckedly refusing to go
there, but made no opposition.

Coronado had meditated everything and decided everything. It would not do
to go to a hotel, because that might lead to a suspicion that he knew all
the while about the death of Munoz. His plan was to drive at once to the
old man's place, demand him as if he expected to see him, express proper
surprise and grief over the funereal response, put the estate as soon as
possible into Clara's hands, become her man of affairs and trusted friend,
and so climb to be her husband. He was anxious; during all his perils in
the desert he had never been more so; but he bore the situation
heroically, as he could bear; his face revealed nothing but its outside--a
smile.

"My dear cousin," he presently said, "when I once fairly set you down in
your home, you will owe me, in spite of all my blunders, a word of
thanks."

"Coronado, I shall owe you more than I ever can repay," she replied
frankly, without remembering that he wanted to marry her. The next instant
she remembered it, and her face showed the first blush that had tinted it
for two months. He saw the significant color, and turned away to conceal a
joy which might have been perilous had she observed it.

Immediately on landing he proceeded to carry out his programme. He took a
hack, drove the ladies direct to the house of Munoz, and there went
decorously through the form of learning that the old man was dead. Then,
consoling the sorrowful and anxious Clara, he hurried to the best hotel in
the city and made arrangements for what he meant should be an impressive
scene, the announcement of her fortune. He secured fine rooms for the
ladies, and ordered them a handsome lunch, with wine, etc., all without
regard to expense. The girl must be perfectly comfortable and under a
sense of all sorts of obligations to him when she received his _coup de
theatre_.

He was not so preoccupied but that he quarelled with his coachman about
the hack hire and dismissed him with some disagreeable epithets in
Spanish. Next he took a saddle-horse, as being the cheapest conveyance
attainable, and cantered off to find the executors of Munoz, enjoying
heartily such stares of admiration as he got for his splendid riding. In
an hour he returned, found the ladies in their freshest dresses, and
complimented them suitably. At this very moment his anguish of anxiety and
suspense was terrible. When Clara should learn that she was a millionaire,
what would she do? Would she throw off the air of friendliness which she
had lately worn, and scout him as one whom she had long known as a
scoundrel? Would all his plots, his labors, his perils, and his love prove
in one moment to have been in vain? As he stood there smiling and
flattering, he was on the cross.

"But I am talking trifles," he said at last, fairly catching his breath.
"Can you guess why I do it? I am prolonging a moment of intense pleasure."

Such was his control over himself that he looked really benign and noble
as he drew from his pocket a copy of the will and held it out toward
Clara.

"My dear cousin," he murmured, his dark eyes searching her face with
intense anxiety, "you cannot imagine my joy in announcing to you that you
are the sole heir of the good Pedro Munoz."




CHAPTER XXXV.


At the announcement that she was a millionaire Clara turned pale, took the
proffered paper mechanically with trembling fingers, and then, without
looking at it, said, "Oh, Coronado!"

It was a tone of astonishment, of perplexity, of regret, of protest; it
seemed to declare, Here is a terrible injustice, and I will none of it.
Coronado was delighted; in a breath he recovered all his presence of mind;
he recovered his voice, too, and spoke out cheerfully:

"Ah, you are surprised, my cousin. Well, it is your grandfather's will.
You, as well as all others, must submit to it."

Aunt Maria jumped up and walked or rather pranced about the room, saying
loudly, "He must have been the best man in the whole world." After
repeating this two or three times, she halted and added with even more
emphasis, "Except _you_, Mr. Coronado!"

The Mexican bowed in silence; it was almost too much to be praised in that
way, feeling as he did; he bowed twice and waved his hand, deprecating the
compliment. The interview was a very painful one to him, although he knew
that he was gaining admiration with every breath that he drew, and
admiration just where it was absolutely necessary to him. Turning to Clara
now, he begged, "Read it, if you please, my cousin."

The girl, by this time flushed from chin to forehead, glanced over the
paper, and immediately said, "This should not be so. It must not be."

Coronado was overjoyed; she evidently thought that she owed him and Garcia
a part of this fortune; even if she kept it, she would feel bound to
consider his interests, and the result of her conscientiousness might be
marriage.

"Let us have no contest with the dead," he replied grandly. "Their wishes
are sacred."

"But Garcia and you are wronged, and I cannot have it so," persisted
Clara.

"How wronged?" demanded Aunt Maria. "I don't see it. Mr. Garcia was only a
cousin, and he is rich enough already."

Coronado, remembering that he and Garcia were bankrupt, wished he could
throw the old lady out of a window.

"Wait," said Clara in a tone of vehement resolution. "Give me time. You
shall see that I am not unjust or ungrateful."

"I beg that you will not bestow a thought upon me," implored the sublime
hypocrite. "Garcia, it is true, may have had claims. I have none."

Aunt Maria walked up to him, squeezed both his hands, and came near
hugging him. Once out of this trial, Coronado could bear no more, but
kissed his fingers to the ladies, hastened to his own room, locked the
door, and swore all the oaths that there are in Spanish, which is no small
multitude.

In a few days after this terrible interview things were going swimmingly
well with him. To keep Clara out of the hands of fortune-hunters, but
ostensibly to enable her to pass her first mourning in decent retirement,
he had induced her to settle in one of Munoz's haciendas, a few miles from
the city, where he of course had her much to himself. He was her adviser;
he was closeted frequently with the executors; he foresaw the time when he
would be the sole manager of the estate; he began to trust that he would
some day possess it. What woman could help leaning upon and confiding in a
man who was so useful, so necessary as Coronado, and who had shown such
unselfish, such magnanimous sentiments?

Meantime the girl was as admirable in reality as the man was in
appearance. Unexpected inheritance of large wealth is almost sure to
alter, at least for a time, and generally for the worse, the manner and
morale of a young person, whether male or female. Conceit or haughtiness
or extravagance or greediness, or some other vice, pretty surely enters
into either deportment or conduct. If this girl was changed at all by her
great good fortune, she was changed for the better. She had never been
more modest, gentle, affable, and sensible than she was now. The fact
shows a clearness of mind and a nobleness of heart which place her very
high among the wise and good. Such behavior under such circumstances is
equal to heroism. We are conscious that in saying these things of Clara we
are drawing largely upon the reader's faith. But either her present trial
of character was peculiarly fitted to her, or she was one of those select
spirits who are purified by temptation.

She remembered Garcia's claims upon her grandfather, and her own supposed
obligations to Coronado. She informed the executors that she wished to
make over half her property to the old man, trusteeing it so that it
should descend to his nephew. Their reply, translated from roundabout and
complimentary Spanish into plain English, was this: "You can't do it. The
estate is not settled, and will not be for a year. Moreover, you have no
power to part with it until you are of age, which will not be for three
years. Finally, your proposition defies your grandfather's wishes, and it
is altogether too generous."

Clara's simple and firm reply was, "Well, I must wait. But it would seem
better if I could do it now."

There was one reason why Clara should be so calm and unselfish in her
elevation; her sorrows served her as ballast. Why should she let riches
turn her head when she found that they could not lighten her heart? There
was a certain night in her past which gold could not illuminate; there had
once been a precious life near her, which was gone now beyond the power of
ransom. Thurstane! How she would have lavished this wealth upon him. He
would have refused it; but she would have prayed and forced him to accept
it; she would have been the meeker to him because of it. How noble he had
been! not now to be brought back! gone forever! And his going had been
like the going away of the sun, leaving no beautiful color in all nature,
no guiding light for wandering footsteps. She exaggerated him, as love
will exaggerate the lost.

Of course she did not always believe that he could be dead, and in her
hours of hope she wrote letters inquiring about his fate. In other days he
had told her much of himself, stories of his childhood and his battles,
the number of his old regiment and his new one, titles of his superiors,
names of comrades, etc. To which among all these unknown ones should she
address herself? She fixed on the commander of his present regiment, and
that awfully mysterious personage the Adjutant-General of the army, a
title which seemed to represent omniscience and omnipotence. To each of
these gentlemen she sent an epistle recounting where, when, and how
Lieutenant Ralph Thurstane had been ambushed by unknown Indians, supposed
to be Apaches.

These letters she wrote and mailed without the knowledge of Coronado. This
was not caution, but pity; she did not suspect that he would try to
intercept them; only that it would pain him to learn how much she yet
thought of his rival. Indeed, it would have been cruel to show them to
him, for he would have seen that they were blurred with tears. You
perceive that she had come to be tender of the feelings of this earnest
and scoundrelly lover, believing in his sincerity and not in his villainy.

"Surely some of those people will know," thought Clara, with a trust in
men and dignitaries which makes one say _sancta simplicitas_. "If they do
not know," she added, with a prayer in her heart, "God will discover it to
them."

But no answers came for months. The colonel was not with his regiment, but
on detached service at New York, whither Clara's letter travelled to find
him, being addressed to his name and not marked "Official business." What
he did of course was to forward it to the Adjutant-General of the army at
Washington. The Adjutant-General successively filed both communications,
and sent a copy of each to headquarters at Santa Fe and San Francisco,
with an endorsement advising inquiries and suitable search. The mails were
slow and circuitous, and the official routine was also slow and
circuitous, so that it was long before headquarters got the papers and
went to work.

Does any one marvel that Clara did not go directly to the military
authorities in the city? It must be remembered that man has his own world,
as woman has hers, and that each sex is very ignorant of the spheres and
missions of the other, the retired sex being especially limited in its
information. The girl had never been told that there was such a thing as
district headquarters, or that soldiers in San Francisco had anything to
do with soldiers at Fort Yuma. Nor was she in the way of learning such
facts, being miles away from a uniform, and even from an American.

One day, when she was fuller of hope than usual, she dared to write to
that ghost, Thurstane. Where should the letter be addressed? It cost her
much reflection to decide that it ought to go to the station of his
company, Fort Yuma. This gave her an idea, and she at once penned two
other letters, one directed "To the Captain of Company I," and one to
Sergeant Meyer. But unfortunately those three epistles were not sent off
before it occurred to Coronado that he ought to overlook the packages that
were sent from the hacienda to the city. By the way, he had from the first
assumed a secret censorship over the mails which arrived.

Meantime he also had his anxiety and his correspondence. He feared lest
Garcia should learn how things had been managed, and should hasten to San
Francisco to act henceforward as his own special providence. In that case
there would be awkward explanations, there would be complicated and
perilous plottings, there might be stabbings or poisonings. Already, as
soon as he reached the Mohave valley, he had written one cajoling letter
to his uncle. Scattered through six pages on various affairs were
underscored phrases and words, which, taken in sequence, read as follows:

"Things have gone well and ill. What was most desirable has not been fully
accomplished. There have been perils and deaths, but not the one required.
The wisest plans have been foiled by unforeseen circumstances. The future
rests upon slow poison. A few weeks more will suffice. Do not come here.
It would rouse suspicion. Trust all to me."

He now sent other letters, reporting the progress of the malady caused by
the poison, urging Garcia to remain at a distance, assuring him that all
would be well, etc.

"There will be no will," declared one of these lying messengers. "If there
is a will, you will be the inheritor. In all events, you will be safe.
Rely upon my judgment and fidelity."

It is curious, by the way, that such men as Coronado and Garcia, knowing
themselves and each other to be liars, should nevertheless expect to be
believed, and should frequently believe each other. One is inclined to
admit the seeming paradox that rogues are more easily imposed upon than
honest men.

No responses came from Garcia. But, by way of consolation, Coronado had
Clara's correspondence to read. One day this hidalgo, securely locked in
his room, held in his delicate dark fingers a letter addressed to Miss
Clara Van Diemen, and postmarked in writing "Fort Yuma." Hot as the day
was, there was a brazier by his side, and a kettle of water bubbling on
the coals. He held the letter in the steam, softened the wafer to a pulp,
opened the envelope carefully, threw himself on a sofa, scowled at the
beating of his heart, and began to read.

Before he had glanced through the first line he uttered an exclamation,
turned hastily to the signature, and then burst into a stream of whispered
curses. After he had blasphemed himself into a certain degree of calmness,
he read the letter twice through carefully, and learned it by heart. Then
he thrust it deep into the coals of the brazier, watched it steadily until
its slight flame had flickered away, lighted a cigarito, and meditated.

This epistle was not the only one that troubled him. He already knew that
Clara was inquiring about this man of whom she never spoke, and conducting
her inquiries with an intelligence and energy which showed that her heart
was in the business. If things went on so, there might be trouble some
day, and there might be punishment. For a time he was so disturbed that he
felt somewhat as if he had a conscience, and might yet know what it is to
be haunted by remorse.

As for Clara, he was furious with her, notwithstanding his love for her,
and indeed because of it. It was outrageous that a woman whom he adored
should seek to ferret out facts which might send him to State's Prison. It
was abominable that she would not cease to care for that stupid officer
after he had been so carefully put out of her way. Coronado felt that he
was persecuted.

Well, what should be done? He must put a stop to Clara's inquiries, and he
would do it by inquiring himself. Yes, he would write to people about
Thurstane, show the letters to the girl (but never send them), and so
gradually get this sort of correspondence into his own hands, when he
would drop it. She would be led thereby to trust him the more, to be
grateful to him, perhaps to love him. It was a hateful mode of carrying on
a courtship, but it seemed to be the best that he had in his power. Having
so decided, this master hypocrite, "full of all subtlety and wiles of the
devil," turned his attention to his siesta.

For twenty minutes he slept the sleep of the just; then he was awakened by
a timid knock at his door. Guessing from the shyness of the demand for
entrance that it came from a servant, he called pettishly, "What do you
want? Go away."

"I must see you," answered a voice which, feeble and indistinct as it was,
took Coronado to the door in an instant, trembling in every nerve with
rage and alarm.




CHAPTER XXXVI.


Opening the door softly and with tremulous fingers, Coronado looked out
upon an old gray-headed man, short and paunchy in build, with small,
tottering, uneasy legs, skin mottled like that of a toad, cheeks drooping
and shaking, chin retiring, nose bulbous, one eye a black hollow, the
other filmy and yet shining, expression both dull and cunning, both eager
and cowardly.

The uncle seemed to be even more agitated at the sight of the nephew than
the nephew at the sight of the uncle. For an instant each stared at the
other with a strange expression of anxiety and mistrust. Then Coronado
spoke. The words which he had in his heart were, What are you here for,
you scoundrelly old marplot? The words which he actually uttered were, "My
dear uncle, my benefactor, my more than parent! How delighted I am to see
you! Welcome, welcome!"

The two men grasped each other's arms, and stuck their heads over each
other's shoulders in a pretence of embracing. Perhaps there never was
anything of the kind more curious than the contrast between their
affectionate attitude and the suspicion and aversion painted on their
faces.

"Have you been seen?" asked Coronado as soon as he had closed and locked
the door. "I must contrive to get you away unperceived. Why have you come?
My dear uncle, it was the height of imprudence. It will expose you to
suspicion. Did you not get my letters?"

"Only one," answered Garcia, looking both frightened and obstinate, as if
he were afraid to stay and yet determined not to go. "One from the Mohave
valley."

"But I urged you in that to remain at a distance, until all had been
arranged."

"I know, my son, I know. I thought like you at first. But presently I
became anxious."

"Not suspicious of my good faith!" exclaimed Coronado in a horrified
whisper. "Oh, _that_ is surely impossible."

"No, no--not suspicious--no, no, my son," chattered Garcia eagerly. "But I
began to fear that you needed my help. Things seemed to move so slowly.
Madre de Dios! All across the continent, and nothing done yet."

"Yes, much has been done. I had obstacles. I had people to get rid of.
There was a person who undertook to be lover and protector."

"Is he gone?" inquired the old man anxiously.

"Ask no questions. The less told, the better. I wish to spare you all
responsibility."

"Carlos, you are my son and heir. You deserve everything that I can give.
All shall be yours, my son."

"That Texas Smith of yours is a humbug," broke out Coronado, his mind
reverting to the letter which he had just burned. "I put work on him which
he swore to do and did not do. He is a coward and a traitor."

"Oh, the pig! Did you pay him?"

"I had to pay him in advance--and then nothing done right," confessed
Coronado.

"Oh, the pig, the dog, the toad, the villainous toad, the pig of hell!"
chattered Garcia in a rage. "How much did you pay him? Five hundred
dollars! Oh, the pig and the dog and the toad!"

"Well, I have been frank with you," said Coronado. (He had diminished by
one half the sum paid to Texas Smith.) "I will continue to be frank. You
must not stay here. The question is how to get you away unseen."

"It is useless; I have been recognized," lied Garcia, who was determined
not to go.

"All is lost!" exclaimed Coronado. "The presence of us two--both possible
heirs--will rouse suspicion. Nothing can be done."