the shock of a tremendous conviction. "You don't want my hand."
He dropped it, and then he laughed, that splendid old laugh of his that would make a raven smile.
"Dick, you blessed youngster," said he, "aren't you going to congratulate me?"
"John Brunt," said I, "you haven't done the deed?"
He says my voice was awe-struck, but I know better. Awe was not the emotion I felt at the moment.
"Yes, Dick," he said, with a sudden solemnity, "she has accepted me."
"What! On horseback?" I cried, for that circumstance was really the first thing that struck me.
"Yes, on horseback," he admitted, and then he laughed again.
I did not press for details. In fact I was too much taken aback at first to ask any more questions, and I found John more inclined to talk of the earlier part of the trip. He gave a comical account of little
