“Here’s the devil to pay,” he cried. “Tim’s down against the dashboard as drunk as a lord. There’s nothing to do but put him inside and drive, myself. I’d chuck him into a drift if I were not under certain obligations of a similar sort. Will you come outside with me, or stay in with him?”
“Why not go back to the Presidio?”
“We are about half-way between, and may as well go on.”
“I’ll go outside, by all means.”
He stepped out. The two men dragged the coachman off the box and huddled him inside.
“We’re off the road,” said Hastings, “but I think I can find my way. I’ll cut across to the Mission road, and then we’ll be on level ground, at least.”
They mounted the box. Hastings gathered the reins and Thorpe lit a cigar. The horses, well ordered brutes of the livery stable, did their weary best to respond to the peremptory order to speed.
“We’ll be two hours late,” the young officer grumbled, as they floundered out of the sandhills and entered the Mission Valley.