"There is no need," replied Clara, equally confused.
"Well," he resumed, after a struggle to regain his self-control, "I will do my utmost to overtake you."
"We shall be very glad," returned Clara, with a singular mixture of consciousness and artlessness.
There was an exquisite innocence and almost childish simplicity in this girl of eighteen. It was, so to speak, not quite civilized; it was not in the style of American young ladies; our officer had never, at home, observed anything like it; and, of course—O yes, of course, it fascinated him. The truth is, he was so far gone in loving her that he would have been charmed by her ways no matter what they might have been.
On the very morning after the above dialogue Garcia's train started for Rio Arriba, taking with it a girl who had been singled out for a marriage which she did not guess, or for a death whose horrors were beyond her wildest fears.
The train consisted of six long and heavy covered vehicles, not dissimilar in size, strength, and build to army wagons. Garcia had thought that two would suffice; six wagons, with their mules, etc., were a small fortune: what if the Apaches should take them? But Coronado had replied: "Nobody sends a train of two wagons; do you want to rouse suspicion?"
So there were six; and each had a driver and a muleteer, making twelve hired men thus far. On horseback, there were six Mexicans, nominally cattle-drivers going to California, but really guards for the expedition—the most courageous bullies that could be picked up in Santa Fé, each armed with pistols and a rifle. Finally, there were Coronado and his terrible henchman, Texas Smith, with their rifles and revolvers. Old Garcia perspired with anguish as he looked over his caravan, and figured up the cost in his head.
Thurstane, wretched at heart, but with a cheering smile on his lips, came to bid the ladies farewell.
"What do you think of this?" Aunt Maria called to him from her seat in one of the covered wagons. "We are going a thousand miles through deserts and savages. You men suppose that women have no courage. I call this heroism."
"Certainly," nodded the young fellow, not thinking of her at all, unless it was that she was next door to an idiot.