and make pictures on the wall, with a nervous rapidity
proportionate to his embarrassment.

"Do you solemnly swear?"

It was very painful. The little man took down his lifted flagstaff to
wipe his little bald head, and he could not get it up again, but stood
there still and helpless.

You could hear the men breathe deeper than before as they leaned and
listened with all their might to hear. They heard the water outside
gurgling on down over the great boulders, over their dams, and on
through the canon. They heard the little brown wood-mice nibble and
nibble at the bits of bacon-rind and old leather boots up in the loft
above their heads, but that was all. At last the Judge revived, and
began again in a voice that was full of desperation:

"Do you solemnly swear to love, and protect, and honor, and obey, till
death do you part; and--"

Here the voice fell down low, lower, and the Judge was again floundering
in the water. Then his head went under utterly. Then he rose, and "Now I
lay me down to sleep" rolled tremulously through the silent room from
the lips of the Judge. Then again the head was under water, then it rose
up again, and there was something like "Twinkle, twinkle, little star."
Then the voice died again, again the head was under water. Then it rose
again, and the head went up high in the air, and the voice was loud and
resolute, and the man rose on his tiptoes, and beginning with--"When in
the course of human events," he went on in a deep and splendid tone with
the Declaration of Independence, to the very teeth of tyrannical King
George, and then bringing his hand down emphatically on the gambling
table that stood to his right, said, loud, and clear, and resolute, and
authoritatively, as he tilted forward on his toes, "So help you God, and
I pronounce you man and wife."

The exhausted Judge sank back against the wall on top of Limber Tim, and
then, as if he all at once came to remember a part of the ceremony, and
after Sandy and the Widow and all were thinking that it was quite over,
he began in a low but clear voice--

"Then by virtue of the authority in me vested, and according to the laws
and the statutes of the State of California in such cases made and
provided, I pronounce you man and wife."

Then he rose up, came forward, and shaking the new bride by the hand,
then lifting it to his lips and kissing it gallantly, he said
carelessly, and as if nothing had happened, "You will pardon me for
pau