“Commence suit!” I says. “I don't care WHAT you commence, if you'll commence to keep quiet now!” And then I give her a few p'ints as to what her brother had done, heaving in some personal flatteries every once in a while for good measure. I'd about got to thirdly when James give a screech and p'inted. And, if there wa'n't Lonesome in the launch, headed right for us, and coming a-b'iling! He'd run her along abreast of the beach and turned in at the upper end of the Cut-Through. You never in your life heard such a row as there was in that wagon. Clarissa and me yelling to Lonesome to keep off--forgitting that he was stone deef and dumb--and James vowing that he was going to be slaughtered in cold blood. And the Greased Lightning p'inted just so she'd split that cart amidships, and coming--well, you know how she can go. She never budged until she was within ten foot of the flat, and then she sheered off and went past in a wide curve, with Lonesome steering with one hand and shaking his pitchfork at Todd with t'other. And SUCH faces as he made-up! They'd have got him hung in any court in the world. He run up the Cut-Through a little ways, and then come about, and back he comes again, never slacking speed a mite, and running close to the shoal as he could shave, and all the time going through the bloodiest kind of pantomimes. And past he goes, to wheel 'round and commence all over again. Thinks I, “Why don't he ease up and lay us aboard? He's got all the weapons there is. Is he scart?” And then it come to me--the reason why. HE DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO STOP HER. He could steer first rate, being used to sailboats, but an electric auto launch was a new ideal for him, and he didn't understand her works. And he dastn't run her aground at the speed she was making; 'twould have finished her and, more'n likely, him, too. I don't s'pose there ever was another mess just like it afore or sence. Here was us, stranded with a horse we couldn't make go, being chased by a feller who was run away with in a boat he couldn't stop! Just as I'd about give up hope, I heard somebody calling from the beach behind us. I turned, and there was Becky Huckleberries, Lonesome's daughter. She had the dead decoys by the legs in one hand. “Hi!” says she. “Hi!” says I. “How do you get this giraffe of yours under way?” She held up the decoys. “Who kill-a dem ducks?” says she. I p'inted to the reverend. “He did,” says I. And then I cal'late I must have had one of them things they call an inspiration. “And he's willing to pay for 'em,” I says. “Pay thirty-five dolla?” says she. “You bet!” says I. But I'd forgot Clarissa. She rose up in that waterlogged cart like a Statue of Liberty. “Never!” says she. “We will never submit to such extortion. We'll drown first!” Becky heard her. She didn't look disapp'inted nor nothing. Just turned and begun to walk up the beach. “ALL right,” says she; “GOO'-by.”