On the
day I receive it she takes sasine of her heritage. Which of you
gallants offers for the venture?"
To this day I do not know what were Francis Nicholson's motives. He
wished the mountains crossed, but he cannot have expected to meet a
pathfinder among the youth of the Tidewater. I think it was the whim of
the moment. He would endow Elspeth, and at the same time test her
cavaliers. To the ordinary man it seemed the craziest folly. Studd had
been a wild fellow, half Indian in blood and wholly Indian in habits,
and for another to travel fifty miles into the heart of the desert was
to embrace destruction. The company sat very silent. Elspeth, with a
blushing cheek, turned troubled eyes on the speaker.
As for me, I had found the chance I wanted. I was on my feet in a
second. "I will go," I said; and I had hardly spoken when Grey was
beside me, crying, "And I."
Still the company sat silent. 'Twas as if the shadow of a sterner life
had come over their young gaiety. Elspeth did not look at me, but sat
with cast-down eyes, plucking feverishly at a rose. The Governor
laughed out loud.
"Brave hearts!" he cried. "Will you travel together?"
I looked at Grey. "That can hardly be," he said.
"Well, we must spin for it," said Nicholson, taking a guinea from his
pocket.
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