“James,” she calls, “get out of that water this minute and come here!  This instant, mind!”

James minded.  He paddled ashore and hopped, dripping like a dishcloth, alongside the truck wagon.

“Get in!” orders Skipper Clarissa.  He done it.  “Now,” says the lady, passing 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 explaining to Lonesome for an hour or more yet, even if you can talk finger signs, which part of my college training 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 get the Todds over to the hotel, afterward coming back to get 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 something out of that wagon.  First ’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 heaving cargo overboard like a leaky ship in a typhoon.  Out of the tail of my eye I see Lonesome, well out to sea, heading the Greased Lightning for the beach.

Clarissa put in the time soothing James, who had a serious case of the scart-to-deaths, and calling me an “utter barbarian” for driving so fast.  Lucky for all hands, she had to hold on tight to keep from being jounced out, ’long with the rest of movables, so she couldn’t take the reins.  As for me, I wa’n’t paying much attention to her—­’twas the Cut-Through that was disturbing 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 coming 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.

We struck that Cut-Through about a hundred yards east of the ford, and in two shakes we was hub deep in salt water.  ’Fore the Todds could do anything but holler the wagon was afloat and the mare was all but swimming.  But she kept right on.  Bless her, you couldn’t stop her!

We crossed the first channel and come out on a flat where ’twasn’t more’n two foot deep then.  I commenced to feel better.  There was another channel ahead of us, but I figured we’d navigate that same as we had the first one.  And then the most outrageous thing happened.

If you’ll b’lieve it, that pesky mare balked and wouldn’t stir another step.