Miss Mercy snickered.
"You see that p'int ahead of us? Onct a feller ridin' a bronc backed off there. They rolled two hundred feet together. Wonder it didn't kill 'em."
Aunt Lizzie was twisting her fingers and whispering: "Oh, how dread-ful!"
"Jest around that bend," went on the entertainer, expectorating with deliberation before he continued, "a buggy tried to pass a hay-wagon. It was a brand-new buggy, cost all of $250, and the first time he'd took his family out in it. Smashed it to kindlin' wood. The woman threw the baby overboard and it never could see good out of one eye afterward. She caught on a tree when she was rollin' and broke four ribs, or some such matter. He'd ought to a-knowed better than to pass a hay-wagon where it was sidlin'. Good job, says I, fer havin' no judgment though I was one of his pall-bearers, as an accommodation."
Aunt Lizzie was beyond exclaiming, and Miss Mercy's toes were curling and uncurling, though she preserved a composed exterior.
After setting the brake, McGonnigle went on humorously, gesticulating spaciously while the slack of the lines swung on the single-tree: "On this here hill the brake on a dude's automo-bubbly quit on him. When he come to the turn he went on over. Ruined the car, plumb wrecked it, and it must a cost $1,500 to $2,000. They shipped his corp' back East somewhere."
Pale, and shaking like an aspen, Aunt Lizzie clung tightly to Miss Mercy. The scenery was sublime, but they had no eye for it. Their gaze was riveted upon the edge of the precipice some six or eight inches from the outer wheels of the surrey, and life at the moment looked as sweet as it seemed uncertain.
Driving with one hand and pointing with the other, McGonnigle went on with the fluency for which he was celebrated: "That sharp curve we're comin' to is where they was a head-on collision between a chap on a motorcycle and a traction en-jine they was takin' through the cañon. He was goin' too fast, anyhow--the motorcycle--and it jest splattered him, as you might say, all over the front of the en-jine."
Mr. McGonnigle put the lines between his knees and gripped them while he readjusted his hat with one hand and pointed with the other: "You see that hangin' rock? There where it sticks over? Well, sir, two cayuses tryin' to unload their packs bounced off there and----"
A shriek in his ear interrupted McGonnigle at this juncture. He turned, startled, to see Aunt Lizzie with her fingers in her ears screaming that she was going to have hysterics.