CHAPTER XVI.
It must be remembered that when Mrs.Stanley carried off skipper Glover to help her investigate the religion of the Moquis, she left Coronado alone with Clara in one of the interior rooms of the chief's house.
Thurstane, to be sure, was in the next room and in sight; but he had with him the chief, two other leading Moquis, and his chance Navajo interpreter; they were making a map of the San Juan country by scratching with an arrow-point on the clay floor; everybody was interested in the matter, and there was a pretty smart jabbering.

Thus Coronado could say his say without being overheard or interrupted.
For a little while he babbled commonplaces.

The truth is that the sight of the girl had unsettled his resolutions a little.

While he was away from her, he could figure to himself how he would push her into taking him at once, or how, if she refused him, he would let loose upon her the dogs of fate.

But once face to face with her, he found that his resolutions had dispersed like a globule of mercury under a hammer, and that he needed a few moments to scrape them together again.