ry up!"

"Better stand up, Mister Cassidy," she whispered; "we've got tuh be
real quick!"

"It don't seem hardly regular!" yelled the discomfited sheriff,
skilfully avoiding a dangerous hummock and crashing through a
mesquit-bush which whipped away his hat. "I'll--I'll do it for yuh,
Mis' Gentry. I'll marry yuh as tight as I kin; but I can't stop
drivin' for that, and I've forgot a whole lot how it goes. Are yuh all
ready?"

The desert had changed from its soft, yielding sand to a brown, flat
floor of small stones and volcanic dust, fairly hard and unrutted.
Pulling in dangerously close, the sheriff shifted his reins to one
hand and faced them. The two wagons were racing neck and neck in a
cloud of dust, Cassidy handling his lines with skill and growing
satisfaction. From the body of the wagon under him, and quite
distinguishable from the clatter of the horses' feet, came a series of
sharp bumps as the unfortunate Tommy ricochetted from side to side.

"Do yuh believe in the Constitution of the United States?" bellowed
Jake.

"_We do!_" pealed the woman.

"Do yuh--whoa, there, Pet! Goll darn your hide!--do yuh solemnly swear
never tuh fight no _duels_?"

"What's that?" screamed the woman.

"He said a 'duel'!" shouted Cassidy in her ear, above the uproar of
the wheels. "Tell him _no_! We won't fight many duels!"

"No! _No_ duels!" sang the woman.

"And no aidin' or abettin'?"

"No! No bettin' at all!"

"Nor have any connection with any _duels_ whatsoever?"

The widow looked puzzled. She didn't understand. What had _duels_ to
do with solemn marriage?

"It's all in the statutes, all right!" roared the sheriff angrily, as
vast portions of the laws of Nevada fled from his agitated mind.

"Mebbe you're both grand jurors now; I dunno. I think that's the oath.
I reckon it's good and bindin', anyhow." He stood up in his buggy and
shook the reins furiously over his horses' backs to escape from
further legal entanglements. Leaning back over the folded top, he
pointed at them magisterially with his whip.

"And now, by the grace of God and me, Jake Bowerman, I hereby
pronounce yuh man and wife!"

With a roar of wheels, bad language, and a cloud of dust, the sheriff
vanished in pursuit of the California line and the fleet-footed Tommy.

Cassidy pulled his horses into a much-needed walk. The little woman
sat down and felt for her bonnet.

"_My!_" gasped Mrs. Cassidy, "_that_ was going some! Do yuh reckon
we'r