ts; but Aggy gave him the jolly.
He only meant it in fun, and there was plenty of reason for it,
too, for you never seen such a game of driving as that feller put
up in all your life. The Lord save us! He cut around one corner
of a mountain, so that for the longest second I've lived through,
my left foot hung over about a thousand feet of fresh air. I'd
have had time to write my will before I touched bottom if we'd gone
over. I don't know as I turned pale, but my hair ain't been of the
same rosy complexion since.

"'Well!' says Aggy in a surprised tone of voice when we got all
four wheels on the ground again. 'Here we are!' says he. 'Who'd
have suspected it? I thought he was going to take the short cut
down to the creek.'

"The driver turned round with one corner of his lip h'isted--a dead
ringer of a mean man--Says he to Aggy, 'Yer a funny bloke, ain't
yer?'

"'Why!' says Ag, 'that's for you to say--wouldn't look well coming
from me--but if you press me, I'll admit I give birth to a little
gem now and then.'

"Our bold buck puts on a great swagger. 'Well yer needn't be funny
in this waggon,' says he. 'The pair of yer spongin' a ride! Yer
needn't be gay--yer hear me, don't cher?'

"'Why, I hear you as plain as though you set right next me,' says
Ag. 'Now, you listen and see if I'm audible at the same
range--You're a blasted chump!' he roars, in a tone of voice that
would have carried forty mile. Did _you_ hear that, Red?' he asks
very innocent. I was so hot at the driver's sass--the cussed
low-downness of doing a feller a favour and then heaving it at
him--that you could have lit a match on me anywheres, but to save
me I couldn't help laughing--Ag had the comicallest way!

"At that the driver begins to larrup the horses. I ain't the kind
to feel faint when a cayuse gets what's coming to him for raising
the devil, but to see that lad whale his team because there wasn't
nothing else he dared hit, got me on my hind legs. I nestled one
hand in his hair and twisted his ugly mug back.

"'Quit that!' says I.

"'You let me be--I ain't hurting _you_,' he hollers.

"'That ain't to say I won't be hurting you soon,' says I. 'You put
the bud on them horses again, and I'll boot the spine of your back
up through the top of your head till it stands out like a
flag-staff. Just one more touch, and you get it!' says I.

"He didn't open his mouth again till we come to the river. Then he
pulled up. 'This is