here was another
channel ahead of us, but I figured we'd navigate that same as we had the
first one. And then the most outrageous thing happened.

If you'll b'lieve it, that pesky mare balked and wouldn't stir another
step.

And there we was! I punched and kicked and hollered, but all that
stubborn horse would do was lay her ears back flat, and snarl up her
lip, and look round at us, much as to say: "Now, then, you land sharks,
I've got you between wind and water!" And I swan to man if it didn't
look as if she had!

"Drive on!" says Clarissa, pretty average vinegary. "Haven't you made
trouble enough for us already, you dreadful man? Drive on!"

Hadn't _I_ made trouble enough! What do you think of that?

"You want to drown us!" says Miss Todd, continuing her chatty remarks.
"I see it all! It's a plot between you and that murderer. I give you
warning; if we reach the hotel, my brother and I will commence suit for
damages."

My temper's fairly long-suffering, but 'twas raveling some by this time.

"Commence suit!" I says. "I don't care WHAT you commence, if you'll
commence to keep quiet now!" And then I give her a few p'ints as to what
her brother had done, heaving in some personal flatteries every once in
a while for good measure.

I'd about got to thirdly when James give a screech and p'inted. And,
if there wa'n't Lonesome in the launch, headed right for us, and coming
a-b'iling! He'd run her along abreast of the beach and turned in at the
upper end of the Cut-Through.

You never in your life heard such a row as there was in that wagon.
Clarissa and me yelling to Lonesome to keep off--forgitting that he
was stone deef and dumb--and James vowing that he was going to be
slaughtered in cold blood. And the Greased Lightning p'inted just so
she'd split that cart amidships, and coming--well, you know how she can
go.

She never budged until she was within ten foot of the flat, and then she
sheered off and went past in a wide curve, with Lonesome steering with
one hand and shaking his pitchfork at Todd with t'other. And SUCH faces
as he made-up! They'd have got him hung in any court in the world.

He run up the Cut-Through a little ways, and then come about, and back
he comes again, never slacking speed a mite, and running close to the
shoal as he could shave, and all the time going through the bloodiest
kind of pantomimes. And past he goes, to wheel 'round and commence all
over again.

Thinks I, "Why don't he ea