Thurstane was about to accompany it out of the town when his clerk came to tell him that the board of survey required his immediate presence.

Cursing his hard fate, and wishing himself anything but an officer in the army, he waved a last farewell to Clara, and turned his back on her, perhaps forever.
Santa Fe is situated on the great central plateau of North America, seven thousand feet above the level of the sea.

Around it spreads an arid plain, sloping slightly where it approaches the Rio Grande, and bordered by mountains which toward the south are of moderate height, while toward the north they rise into fine peaks, glorious with eternal snow.

Although the city is in the latitude of Albemarle Sound, North Carolina, its elevation and its neighborhood to Alpine ranges give it a climate which is in the main cool, equable, and healthy.
The expedition moved across the plain in a southwesterly direction.
Coronado's intention was to cross the Rio Grande at Pena Blanca, skirt the southern edge of the Jemez Mountains, reach San Isidoro, and then march northward toward the San Juan region.

The wagons were well fitted out with mules, and as Garcia had not chosen to send much merchandise by this risky route, they were light, so that the rate of progress was unusually rapid.
We cannot trouble ourselves with the minor incidents of the journey.
Taking it for granted that the Rio Grande was passed, that halts were made, meals cooked and eaten, nights passed in sleep, days in pleasant and picturesque travelling, we will leap into the desert land beyond San Isidoro.
The train was now seventy-five miles from Santa Fe.