Coronado felt that he was persecuted.

Then Coronado spoke.

"Have you been seen?" asked Coronado as soon as he had closed and locked the door.

"Well, I have been frank with you," said Coronado.

" "We would do it if it were possible," bowed Coronado.

Coronado, in a rapid whisper, translated this conversation phrase by phrase to Mrs. Stanley, his object being to make Clara's promises public and thus engage her to their fulfilment.

In short, even deducting all that Coronado meant to appropriate to himself, Garcia would obtain a small profit from the affair.

Coronado saw that he had made a blunder, and sought to rectify it by lying copiously.

Although he pretended at last to accept Coronado's explanation for fact, he remained at bottom unconvinced, and showed it in his swollen and trembling visage.

"What is it?" whispered Mrs. Stanley, clutching Coronado by the arm and staring eagerly at his anxious eyes.

" Coronado put the package behind him with one hand and held off his uncle with the other.

" As Coronado looked after the flying old man he heard himself called by Mrs. Stanley, who was by this time in great terror about Clara, trotting hither and thither after help and counsel.

Will those doctors never come!" Coronado, who had been a little in advance of Mrs. Stanley as they hurried toward Clara's room, suddenly stopped, wheeled about with a smile, seized her hands, and shook them heartily.

Thus it was that Clara was gently, very gently, and unconsciously to herself, approaching Coronado.

" An hour later she said, in her usually gentle tone, "Coronado, pardon me for having spoken to you angrily.

"You have no other passengers, I understood you to say, captain," observed Coronado, who was anxious on that point, preferring there should be none.

" Coronado presently slipped down the companionway, found the colored steward, chinked five dollars into his horny palm, and said, "My good fellow, you must look out for me; I shall want a good deal of help during the passage.

The door opened a trifle, and Coronado instantly slipped the toe of his little boot into the crack, at the same time saying in his natural tone, "My dear uncle!" Seeing that he was discovered, Garcia gave his nephew entrance, closed the door after him, locked it, and sat down trembling on the edge of the lower berth, groaning and almost whimpering, "Ah, my son!

"Is it because we abandoned you?" demanded Coronado.

" "I am obliged to speak to you of her," said Coronado.

Coronado, although seeming resolved to bear himself like an hidalgo and maintain a grim silence, his face was wilted and seamed with anxiety, as if he had become an old man in the night.

" The young man hesitated, glanced around for Coronado and Garcia, and replied, "Those first.

The people of Monterey universally admitted that they had never before known such an affectionate nephew and tender-hearted Christian as Coronado.

Even if he could have resolved to kill Clara, there was no longer anything to be gained by it, for her money would not descend to Coronado.

Half a dozen armed horsemen, three of them obviously Americans, rode by with a pinioned prisoner, in whom Coronado recognized Texas Smith