"No! No bettin' at all!"

"Nor have any connection with any _duels_ whatsoever?"

The widow looked puzzled. She didn't understand. What had _duels_ to
do with solemn marriage?

"It's all in the statutes, all right!" roared the sheriff angrily, as
vast portions of the laws of Nevada fled from his agitated mind.

"Mebbe you're both grand jurors now; I dunno. I think that's the oath.
I reckon it's good and bindin', anyhow." He stood up in his buggy and
shook the reins furiously over his horses' backs to escape from
further legal entanglements. Leaning back over the folded top, he
pointed at them magisterially with his whip.

"And now, by the grace of God and me, Jake Bowerman, I hereby
pronounce yuh man and wife!"

With a roar of wheels, bad language, and a cloud of dust, the sheriff
vanished in pursuit of the California line and the fleet-footed Tommy.

Cassidy pulled his horses into a much-needed walk. The little woman
sat down and felt for her bonnet.

"_My!_" gasped Mrs. Cassidy, "_that_ was going some! Do yuh reckon
we're really married?"

The team, unheeded, had swung off from the desert into a road made in
damper, richer soil. Not far ahead, now, the dark foliage of the