"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'?"