priest, had found the name of the Spanish
maker on the sword, and an abbreviation that
stood for the city of Cordova.

"And that I saw with my own eyes," An-
tonia put in triumphantly. "So Jim and
Charley were right, and the teachers were
wrong!"

The girls began to wonder among them-
selves. Why had the Spaniards come so far?
What must this country have been like, then?
Why had Coronado never gone back to Spain,
to his riches and his castles and his king? I
couldn't tell them. I only knew the school
books said he "died in the wilderness, of a
broken heart."

"More than him has done that," said An-
tonia sadly, and the girls murmured assent.

We sat looking off across the country,
watching the sun go down. The curly grass
about us was on fire now. The bark of the
oaks turned red as copper. There was a
shimmer of gold on the brown river. Out in
the stream the sandbars glittered like glass,
and the light trembled in the willow thickets
as if little flames were leaping among them.
The breeze sank to stillness. In the ravine a
ringdove mourned plaintively, and somewhere

[[278]]

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v?