"No danger of ambushes here." Clara's eyes sparkled with youth's love of excitement, and the two horses sprang off at speed toward the centre of the plateau.

After a glorious flight of five minutes, enjoyed for the most part in silence, as such swift delights usually are, they dropped into a walk two miles ahead of the wagons.
"That was magnificent," Clara of course said, her face flushed with pleasure and exercise.
"You are wonderfully handsome," observed Coronado, with an air of thinking aloud, which disguised the coarse directness of the flattery.

In fact, he was so dazzled by her brilliant color, the sunlight in her disordered curls, and the joyous sparkling of her hazel eyes, that he spoke with an ingratiating honesty.
Clara, who was in one of her unconscious and innocent moods, simply replied, "I suppose people are always handsome enough when they are happy." "Then I ought to be lovely," said Coronado.

"I am happier than I ever was before." "Coronado, you look very well," observed Clara, turning her eyes on him with a grave expression which rather puzzled him.

"This out-of-door life has done you good." "Then I don't look very well indoors ?" he smiled.
"You know what I mean, Coronado.