Two hundred and fifty years in learning the fact, Mrs.Stanley! Just as we were two hundred and fifty years without discovering the gold of California." "Ah!" said Clara.

Absent since her childhood from New Mexico, she knew little about its geography, and could be easily deceived.
After a while Thurstane entered, out of breath and red with haste.

He had stolen ten minutes from his accounts and stores to bring Miss Van Diemen a piece of information which was to him important and distressing.
"I fear that I shall not be able to go with you," he said.

"I have received orders to wait for a sergeant and three recruits who have been assigned to my company.

The messenger reports that they are on the march from Fort Bent with an emigrant train, and will not be here for a week.