and blushed incontinently.

Behind them a light buggy was being driven over the desert at a
furious pace. As it came nearer, the two in the ranch-wagon, with its
confused huddle of horse-blankets and hay, beneath which lay the
trustful Tommy, could hear the shock of the springs as it bumped from
one chuck-hole to another; but they did not turn their heads.

"Hello, there, Cass!" shouted the sheriff genially, as he pulled down
alongside of them. "How'do, Mis' Gentry! Pretty hot travelin', ain't
it?"

"I s'pose it is--being July," the little woman replied, with the first
trace of confusion that Cassidy had seen. "I--I hadn't been noticing
lately."

"I'm in a terrible hurry," the sheriff continued rapidly. "Some are
sayin' young Tommy Ivison come this way, and I want him. I hate tuh
give yuh my dust. Whoa, Dick! Whoa, Pet!" He pulled in his fretting
team with a heavy hand. "I've got tuh get him before he crosses the
California line, so I got tuh fan right along. Gid-ap, there!"

"Wait a minute, Jake."

"Can't do it, Mis' Gentry. If he's more than a couple of miles ahead,
I can't ketch him. What is it I can do for you?"

"Yuh kin marry us two!" said the little woman, with a gulp.

"_Marry yuh?_" roared the sheriff. "Can't do it, ma'am--not even for a
friend. Awful sorry, Mis' Gentry, but I've just _got_ tuh go." He
jerked the whip from its socket for a merciless slash.

"_Jake!_" said the little woman commandingly.

"Ma'am?" said the sheriff in an uncertain tone.

"Yuh heard what I said?"

"Yes, ma'am; but it ain't regular at _all_. I ain't no justice of the
peace; I ain't got power enough; I ain't got anything--Bible, nor
statutes, nor nothing. I couldn't take no fee, either; it wouldn't be
right. By Golly!" he exclaimed excitedly, "I bet that's him, up ahead,
right now!" and he struck his horses.

"Whip up!" said the woman to Cassidy, and she stood up in the wagon
and held on by the rocking top.

"Jake Bowerman!" she called across the erratic width that separated
the rapidly moving vehicles, "if you've got power enough tuh 'rest
people and keep 'em in jail for the rest of their lives, marryin'
ain't much worse, and yuh kin do it if yuh try!"

"Yuh ain't got any witness, Mis' Gentry!" bellowed the confused Jake,
as a last resort, and touched his horses again. Cassidy let out
another notch, and kept even. The wagons were swaying jerkily from
side to side.

"Yes, I have!" snapped the woman. "Now, yuh hur