Coronado, although he had spent great part of his life in courting women, was a bachelor.  He had been engaged once in New Mexico and two or three times in New York, but had always, as he could tell you with a smile, been disappointed.  He now lived with his uncle, that Senor Manuel Garcia whom Clara has mentioned, a trader with California, an owner of vast estates and much cattle, and reputed to be one of the richest men in New Mexico.  The two often quarrelled, and the elder had once turned the younger out of doors, so lively were their dispositions.  But as Garcia had lost one by one all his children, he had at last taken his nephew into permanent favor, and would, it was said, leave him his property.

The house, a hollow square built of adobe bricks in one story, covered a vast deal of ground, had spacious rooms and a court big enough to bivouac a regiment.  It was, in fact, not only a dwelling, but a magazine where Garcia stored his merchandise, and a caravansary where he parked his wagons.  As Coronado lounged into the main doorway he was run against by a short, pursy old gentleman who was rushing out.

“Ah! there you are!” exclaimed the old gentleman, in Spanish.  “O you pig! you dog! you never are here.  O Madre de Dios! how I have needed you!  There is no time to lose.  Enter at once.”

A dyspeptic, worn with work and anxieties, his nervous system shattered, Garcia was subject to fits of petulance which were ludicrous.  In these rages he called everybody who would bear it pigs, dogs, and other more unsavory nicknames.  Coronado bore it because thus he got his living, and got it without much labor.

“I want you,” gasped Garcia, seizing the young man by the arm and dragging him into a private room.  “I want to speak to you in confidence—­in confidence, mind you, in confidence—­about Munoz.”

“I have heard of it,” said Coronado, as the old man stopped to catch his breath.

“Heard of it!” exclaimed Garcia, in such consternation that he turned yellow, which was his way of turning pale.  “Has the news got here?  O Madre de Dios!”

“Yes, I was at our little cousin’s this evening.  It is an ugly affair.”

“And she knows it?” groaned the old man.  “O Madre de Dios!”

“She told me of it.  She is going there.  I did the best I could.  She was about to go overland, in charge of the American, Thurstane.  I broke that up.  I persuaded her to go by the isthmus.”

“It is of little use,” said Garcia, his eyes filmy with despair, as if he were dying.  “She will get there.  The property will be hers.”

“Not necessarily.  He has simply invited her to live with him.  She may not suit.”

“How?” demanded Garcia, open-eyed and open-mouthed with anxiety.

“He has simply invited her to live with him,” repeated Coronado.  “I saw the letter.”

“What! you don’t know, then?”

“Know what?”