Of course we COULD do without an escort; but forgive my speaking so frankly, are YOU engaged this afternoon ?" "Excuse me, miss, I don't take--" stammered Dick, scarcely believing his ears.
"Could you give us your company as an escort ?" repeated Christie with a smile.
Was he awake or dreaming, or was this some trick of liquor in his often distorted fancy?
He, Whiskey Dick! the butt of his friends, the chartered oracle of the barrooms, even in whose wretched vanity there was always the haunting suspicion that he was despised and scorned; he, who had dared so much in speech, and achieved so little in fact! he, whose habitual weakness had even led him into the wildest indiscretion here; he--now offered a reward for that indiscretion! He, Whiskey Dick, the solicited escort of these two beautiful and peerless girls! What would they say at the Ford?
What would his friends think?
It would be all over the Ford the next day.

His past would be vindicated, his future secured.

He grew erect at the thought.

It was almost in other voice, and with no trace of his previous exaggeration, that he said, "With pleasure." "Then, if you will bring the horses at once, we shall be ready when you return." In another instant he had vanished, as if afraid to trust the reality of his good fortune to the dangers of delay.

At the end of half an hour he reappeared, leading the two horses, himself mounted on a half-broken mustang.