“The parson heard me and come about and broke for the shore. The Greased Lightnin’ had swung out about the length of her anchor rope, and the water wa’n’t deep. Todd splashed in to his waist and climbed aboard. He cut the rodin’ jest as Lonesome reached tide mark. James, he sees it’s a close call, and he shins back to the engine, reachin’ it exactly at the time when the gent with the pitchfork laid hands on the rail. Then the parson throws over the switch—I’d shown him how, you remember—and gives the startin’ wheel a full turn.
“Well, you know the Greased Lightnin’? She don’t linger to say farewell, not any to speak of, she don’t. And this time she jumped like the cat that lit on the hot stove. Lonesome, bein’ balanced with his knees on the rail, pitches headfust into the cockpit. Todd, jumpin’ out of his way, falls overboard backward. Next thing anybody knew, the launch was scootin’ for blue water like a streak of what she was named for, and the huntin’ chaplain was churnin’ up foam like a mill wheel.
“I yelled more orders than second mate on a coaster. Todd bubbled and bellered. Lonesome hung on to the rail of the cockpit and let his hair stand up to grow. Nobody was cool but Clarissa, and she was an iceberg. She had her good p’ints, that old maid did, drat her!
“‘James,’ she calls, ‘git out of that water this minute and come here! This instant, mind!’
“James minded. He paddled ashore and hopped, drippin’ like a dishcloth, alongside the truck wagon.
“‘Git in!’ orders Skipper Clarissa. He done it. ‘Now,’ says the lady, passin’ the reins over to me, ‘drive us home, Mr. Wingate, before that intoxicated lunatic can catch us.’
“It seemed about the only thing to do. I knew ’twas no use explainin’ to Lonesome for an hour or more yit, even if you can talk finger signs, which part of my college trainin’ has been neglected. ’Twas murder he wanted at the present time. I had some sort of a foggy notion that I’d drive along, pick up the guns and then git the Todds over to the hotel, afterward comin’ back to git the launch and pay damages to Huckleberries. I cal’lated he’d be more reasonable by that time.
“But the mare had made other arrangements. When I slapped her with the end of the reins she took the bit in her teeth and commenced to gallop. I hollered ‘Whoa!’ and ‘Heave to!’ and ‘Belay!’ and everything else I could think of, but she never took in a reef. We bumped over hummocks and ridges, and every time we done it we spilled somethin’ out of that wagon. Fust ’twas a lot of huckleberry pails, then a basket of groceries and such, then a tin pan with some potatoes in it, then a jug done up in a blanket. We was heavin’ cargo overboard like a leaky ship in a typhoon. Out of the tail of my eye I see Lonesome, well out to sea, headin’ the Greased Lightnin’ for the beach.
“Clarissa put in the time soothin’ James, who had a serious case of the scart-to-deaths, and callin’ me an ‘utter barbarian’ for drivin’ so fast. Lucky for all hands, she had to hold on tight to keep from bein’ jounced out, ’long with the rest of movables, so she couldn’t take the reins. As for me, I wa’n’t payin’ much attention to her—’twas the ‘Cut-Through’ that was disturbin’ my mind.
“When you drive down to Lonesome P’int you have to ford the ‘Cut-Through.’ It’s a strip of water between the bay and the ocean, and ’tain’t very wide nor deep at low tide. But the tide was comin’ in now, and, more’n that, the mare wa’n’t headed for the ford. She was cuttin’ cross-lots on her own hook, and wouldn’t answer the helm.