"Have you strength to go farther? Hadn't you better wait here?"

"No, no! I can go on! Come, let's hurry!" and she moved forward.

"Then lean on my arm. That will help you some."

"No, thank you. I might keep you back. You go on and follow the trail as fast as you can and I will come behind. Don't stop a minute for me."

The trail left the arroyo and climbed the hill again and from its summit they could see the crowd of people far toward the north scattering out over the mesa and dotting the hills beyond the mountain road. A banner of smoke lay low against the northern horizon, while across the distance came the faint whistle of an approaching train. A vague remembrance came into Marguerite's mind that there was to have been trouble in the town, a battle and bloodshed, after the passing of that train, and that she had been anxious on her father's account. But that all seemed years ago, and the remembrance of it quickly passed.

The trail wandered on, keeping to the hilltops for some time. Mead told Marguerite that the boy had been cold in the early morning and had stayed on the hilltops because it was warmer there when the sun first rose. Then the trail went up and down again, sometimes over the hills and sometimes following the arroyos, sometimes turning on itself and going back, and sometimes circling about in long curves, facing by turns all points of the compass. Along arroyos, and on hillsides that were comparatively barren and sandy it was easily followed. At other times Mead lost it entirely and they would wander about, searching the ground closely. Once Marguerite found the faint track of the shoe when Mead was going away in another direction, and she called him back delightedly. For long distances he would spring rapidly along a trail so faint that it was only by close scrutiny she could see anything, his mind unconsciously marking the distance from one trace to where the next should be, his eye skimming the ground and his quick sight catching the crushed flower stem, the sunken pebble, the broken blade of grass, the tiny depression of heel or toe that marked the way.

The girl toiled on after him, sometimes falling far behind and again catching up and walking by his side. The slumbrous heat of the October day filled the clear, dry air and the sun shone fiercely, unveiled by a single vaporous cloud. Marguerite's mouth was dry and her throat was parched and all her body called for water. She thought of the thirst and the hunger that must be tormenting the little thing that had been wandering over those sun-flooded hills, with neither food nor drink nor sight of friendly face, for so many hours, and the agony of the thought seemed more than she could endure. Sharp, lightning-like pains cracked through her brain, and a dizzy, chaotic whirl filled her head. She put her hands to her forehead and stopped short on the hillside, the fear flying through her mind that she might be going mad. Mead saw her and came quickly to her side, alarmed by her white, tense face and the wild look of agony in her eyes. Her lips were pale and dry.

"Do not stop!" she pleaded. "It is nothing but a little headache. Don't stop a minute for me. Five minutes may mean the difference between life and death for my little boy. Hurry on, and I will come close behind you."

The fear of delaying her companion gave her fresh strength and she went on beside him. In the next arroyo they found a footprint deeply marked in a bed of sand. As Mead glanced at it he saw some grains of sand fall down from the rim of the depression. He called Marguerite's attention to them.

"We must be close behind him," he said, "or that sand would not still be trembling on the edge like that."

"If we only had some water for him!" said Marguerite. "He will need it so badly."

Mead thought that the child would probably be beyond the need of human aid when they should find him, but he merely answered: "Yes, I ought to have thought of it, but we started so hurriedly." His only hope was that they might be in time to save the little worn body from the coyotes. The trail crossed the arroyo and essayed the hill. It was steep and had been too much for the child's ebbing strength. The track went down into the valley again and part way up the other side, then back and across the arroyo, and took the hill once more at a long slant. They lost the trail there and walked about for a few minutes, searching the ground closely for signs of the little feet. Marguerite went on to the top of the hill, and Mead, glancing toward her, saw her standing stiff and still as if turned to stone, holding a little forward her tightly clasped hands. She gave a low cry and he sprang to her side. A moving splotch of red showed above a clump of greasewood half way down the hill. Then a tottering little figure in a torn and ragged linen kilt moved slowly down the hillside, lifting its feet wearily, but still going on.

"Paul! Paul! My darling!" A ringing call broke from Marguerite's lips and she rushed down the hill at a pace which even Mead's running strides could barely equal. The boy heard her cry, turned, swayed on trembling legs, and fell to the ground. She snatched the child to her breast and pressed her face to his. He smiled faintly and wearily, and his parched, cracked lips whispered, "some drink!" and then his eyes closed and his head fell back upon her arm. The gladness in her face froze into terror and she turned to Mead in despairing appeal.

"Is he dead?" she whispered.

The man bent one ear to the child's heart.

"No, he is not dead, nor dying. His heart seems to be beating naturally, but feebly. If we only had some water!"

She held the child toward him, speaking rapidly: "Take him in your arms and run to where the others are. Doctor Long is there, and somebody will have water."

He looked at her anxiously. "But you?" he exclaimed.

She answered with a sharp insistence in her tones, leaning toward him, the words flying from her lips:

"Take him and run, run! Never mind me. I will come behind you. Go, go quickly!"

He cradled the unconscious child in his arms, running with long strides up hill and down, aiming a straight course toward the bulk of the searching party, which he could see from the hilltops, a multitude of moving dots straggling back into the hills where he and Marguerite had first followed the footprints. As he ran, his mind went back over the winding trail they had followed, and he calculated that the child had traveled not less than a dozen miles since sunset of the night before. He glanced over the hills at the crowds beyond and thought it must be some four or five miles to the nearest one. He saw a single horseman off to his left who seemed much nearer, but he decided it would be safer to run straight for the greater number, lest the man might turn about and ride away without seeing him. But the horseman presently came in his direction and soon Mead saw that the man was looking toward him. He waved his hat and halloed, and the man evidently saw and understood, for he spurred his horse into a gallop. As he came nearer Mead thought there was something familiar in his attitude and the outline of his body. But he did not look closely, for he was running through a growth of prickly pear cactus and needed to watch his footsteps. Scarcely more than two hundred yards separated them when the horseman leaned forward in his saddle, studying keenly the figure of the man on foot. A look of cruel, snarling triumph flashed over his face and a Spanish oath broke from his lips. He whipped out a revolver and leveled it at the running man with the child in his arms. Mead had been looking at the ground, choosing his course, and then had glanced at Paul's face for a moment. When he raised his eyes again he saw the shining muzzle of a revolver pointed at his breast and above it the savage, revengeful, triumphant face of Antone Colorow.



CHAPTER XXII

A bullet tore through the sleeve of Mead's coat, passing but a few inches from the head of the unconscious child. Another sang over his left shoulder, scorching his coat. His face, flushed with running, went white and grim with sudden passion, his lips closed in a narrow, straight line, and the yellow flame blazed in his wide and brilliant eyes. He shifted the child more to the left and turned sidewise toward his assailant, shielding the little one with his body. Antone Colorow, shouting curses and vile names, came dashing on, revolver in hand, to try again at closer quarters. Mead kept on, running sidewise, his set white face turned over his shoulder and his flashing eyes fixed on Antone's revolver hand. They were within a score of paces of each other when Mead suddenly jumped to one side and the bullet that was meant for his head whistled harmlessly through the air. "Three!" he thought, his eyes fixed steadily on Antone's right hand, as he still advanced toward the angry man. For he had noticed that the Mexican wore no cartridge belt. Again he sprang to one side as he saw Antone's finger stiffen upon the trigger, and the ball rattled through the bushes behind him. "Four!" he thought, veering toward the west. The Mexican turned his horse to follow, and Mead, with eyes fixed on the trigger, and noting, too, the slant of the barrel, knew that he had no need to dodge the next bullet. It went wild and tore up the ground some feet away. "Only one more!" he thought, as he halted with the sun at his back and shining straight in the Mexican's face. A sudden, quick leap and a loud yell startled Antone's horse, it jerked backward, and the last bullet went singing harmlessly through the air.

Antone's voice shot up into a falsetto, and shrieking vile curses he threw the empty revolver over his shoulder and leaped to the ground. Mead's watchful eye caught the gleam of a steel blade in the sunlight. He dropped his burden upon the ground, in the shade of a clump of greasewood, and sprang to one side. He caught Antone's wrist, as the knife made its downward turn, and held that hand high in the air for a moment while he looked into the Mexican's eyes. They shone with the angry glare of a wild beast.

"Antone," he said, "I have found the lost child. It is still alive, and it may live if I can get it to the doctor at once. Will you let me go and finish this quarrel afterward?"

The Mexican's only answer was a volley of curses. This man had broken his wrists and made useless that boasted skill with the lasso which had been the one pride of his life. For weeks and months anger and hatred and the determination to have revenge had blazed in his heart, and at sight of his enemy everything else went from his mind. He too had been ranging the hills since early morning searching for the boy, but so fierce was his rage that he could have jumped upon the little form and trampled its life out, if by so doing he could have killed Mead with a double death.

Antone's wrists were stiff and his arms had not recovered their full strength, so that Mead had no difficulty in holding the dagger aloft. He waited a moment to see if some glimmer of human feeling would not strike through the man's rage. Suddenly Antone began kicking his shins, and Mead understood that the sooner the struggle began the sooner it would be ended. He strove warily, with the coolness of a masterful determination, with a quick eye, a quick hand, and a quick brain. The Mexican fought with the insensate rage of an angered beast. They struggled first for the possession of the knife. Antone succeeded in releasing his wrist and sprang backward out of Mead's reach. With a lunge straight at his enemy's heart he came forward again, but Mead sprang quickly to one side and the Mexican barely saved himself from sprawling headlong on the ground. He faced about, his features distorted with anger, and, as he dashed forward, Mead caught his wrist again. There was a short, sharp struggle, and Mead sent the knife whirling down the hillside.

Then they closed in a hand to hand struggle. Antone bent his head and sent his teeth deep into Mead's arm. Into the flesh they sank and met and with a slipping sound tore the solid muscle from its bed. Then there flamed in Emerson Mead's heart that wild, white rage that mettles the nerves and steels the muscles of him who suffers that indignity. He felt the strength of a giant in his arms as he gripped the Mexican by both shoulders. In another minute Antone Colorow was flat upon the ground and Emerson Mead was sitting on his chest.

"You hound!" Mead exclaimed, "I ought to kill you, and by the living God, I would if I could do it decently! But I'm no Greaser, to use lariats and knives and boot-heels, and so you get off this time, you beast! If I had a rope," he went on, "I'd tie you here!"

With his right hand he grasped Antone's two wrists while he thrust his left into his pockets in search of something with which he could bind the fallen man. From the side pocket of his coat he drew a shiny, snaky black thing, and a satisfied "ah!" broke from his lips as he saw the Chinaman's queue, which Nick Ellhorn had forgotten, and which he had put into that pocket two weeks before.

As he held it in his hands Marguerite Delarue came running over the hill. Her sunbonnet hung by its strings around her neck, her hair had come down and was streaming over her shoulders, her dress hung in rags and tatters, and she was panting and almost breathless. She had hurried on behind Mead as rapidly as she could walk, until she heard the first pistol shot. Then, fearful of trouble, she had run as fast as possible, stopping at nothing, her anxiety giving speed to her feet and endurance to her muscles.

The look of savage triumph on Mead's face made her shrink back for an instant, awed and frightened. But her comprehension quickly took in what had happened and her heart rose in sympathetic exultation.

"You are just in time," said Mead, "and I'm mighty glad. I'll have to ask you to sit on this man's chest and hold him down while I tie him fast to that mesquite."

Marguerite sat down on the Mexican's breast while Mead tied his wrists tightly together and then began fastening them to the stocky stem of the bush beside which he had fallen. Antone struggled and tried to throw her off, and Mead said:

"I think, Miss Delarue, you'd better put your thumbs on his windpipe and press a little, just to keep him from fighting too hard. We've got no time to waste on him."

Marguerite gasped and hesitated, but her eye fell on little Paul's unconscious figure, and she did as he asked her.

"There," said Mead. "Now get up and jump quickly away."

The prostrate Mexican struggled and rolled about, but he could not rise. Marguerite ran to the child and with her ear to his breast she called to Mead.

"His heart is beating! He is still alive!"

Mead caught Antone's horse, and with Marguerite behind him and the child on one arm started off on the gallop. A long, straggling line of searchers stretched across the mesa, the nearest at least four miles away. As Mead came nearer he dropped the bridle on the horse's neck and waved his hat and shouted again and again. At last he attracted the attention of the nearest ones, and two or three came running toward him. "Water! Water!" he called, at the top of his voice. They understood, and one ran back to the nearest horseman, who galloped off to a group of people still farther away.

Almost instantly the great throng, like a huge organism, animated by one thought, started off across the mesa toward the galloping horse, every atom in it moved by the single purpose to reach at once the new-found babe. Two horses in front of the hastening multitude ran at their topmost speed and distanced all the others. One carried Pierre Delarue and the other Doctor Long, and behind them came horsemen, carts, carriages and people on foot, all rushing to the one point.

The physician administered such restoratives as he had with him and brought the boy back to consciousness. Then, in the shade of a canopy phaeton, he carried the child home in his arms, while Marguerite and her father and Emerson Mead followed in another carriage, and all the crowd came pouring along after them.

But there were four men who stayed behind. Joe Davis and John Daniels and two others, all in perfect accord and friendliness, went back to find Antone Colorow. They had listened to Mead's hastily told story of how Antone had attacked and delayed him. Daniels and Davis had looked at each other with a single significant glance and the one remark, "We'd better attend to him!" And then they had taken the other two men and started back.

They found Antone Colorow still struggling, rolling and kicking on the ground. His lips were stained with the blood his own teeth had drawn, and his red beard was flecked with foam. They untied him, and he sprang to his feet and would have darted away, intent on his one purpose to kill the enemy who had escaped his vengeance, had not quick hands seized him. They tied his arms behind him and set him astride his own horse, and then, surrounding him, with their revolvers drawn, they rode away to the southwest, leaving Las Plumas far to their right. On to the river bottom they went, and into a bosque where the cottonwoods and the sycamores grew thickly and the willow underbrush was dense.

Long afterward a river ranchman, hunting a lost cow, penetrated the bosque and started back in sudden fright from a dangling, decaying body that hung from a sycamore limb.

Pierre Delarue insisted that Emerson Mead should come into his house for some wine and wait until they should know the worst or the best concerning little Paul. He sat alone in the room where first he had seen Marguerite, his anxiety about the child driven quite out of his mind by the thought that the long hours alone with her, out on the hills, their hearts and minds united in a common purpose, had come to an end, that she was soon to be another man's wife, and that he would never see her again. After a time the door opened and she came toward him, smiling gladly. The color had come back to her cheeks and her eyes were bright, though there were still dark rings around them, and her face told of the weariness her brain had not yet recognized. So absorbed had she been in giving the physician assistance and carrying out his directions that she had not thought of her appearance. Her white dress, which yesterday had been fresh and dainty, was in tatters and bedraggled strings, and her hair hung down her back in a disheveled mass. But she came shining down upon Mead's dark thoughts, fresh and beautiful and glorious beyond compare. He did not remember rising, but presently he knew that he was on his feet and that she was standing in front of him. He did not even hear her say, "Doctor Long says my little Bye-Bye will live and that there will probably be no serious results."

Then she saw that he was trembling from head to foot, shaking as do the leaves of a cottonwood tree in a west wind, and she drew back in alarm, looking at him anxiously.

"What is the—" she began, but the look in his eyes stopped her tongue and held her gaze, while she felt her breath come hard and her heart beat like a triphammer. For an instant there was silence. Then Marguerite heard in a whisper so soft that it barely reached her ears, "I love you! I love you!" It was the loosing of the floods, and at once their arms were about each other. But in a second he remembered that she was to be another man's wife, and the thought came over him like the drawing down of the black cap over the head of a condemned man. With a fierce girding of his will he put both his hands upon her shoulders and drew back.

"I forgot! Forgive me!" The words came in a groan from his lips. "I forgot you're going to be his wife!"

"Whose?" said Marguerite, stepping back. For the instant she had forgotten there was any other man in the world.

"Why, Wellesly's!"

"Indeed, I am not!" That one second in Mead's embrace had settled Marguerite's long-vexed problem, and she felt her mind grow full of sudden wonder that it had ever troubled her. "He wanted me to marry him, but I'm not going to do it!"

Again their arms were about each other, their lips met, and her head was pillowed on his shoulder. Then he remembered the fate that was hanging over him, and he said bitterly:

"I've no right to ask you to be my wife, for in another week I'll probably be convicted of murder and sentenced to be hung, or sent to the penitentiary for life."

From the yard came the sound of Pierre Delarue's voice speaking to the crowd. She took Mead's hands in hers and swung a little away from him, looking into his face.

"I know that you didn't kill Will Whittaker!"

"How do you know it?" he answered, looking at her in loving surprise.

"Because he was shot in the back!"

She felt herself swept into the sudden storm of a masterful embrace, and with soft laughter yielded to his rapturous caresses. "And all this time," came to her ear in a whisper, "I've cared about it only because I thought you would believe me guilty even if I was cleared!

"But I've no proof of my innocence," he added presently, "and I can't ask your father's consent, or allow your name to be mentioned with mine in the town's gossip until my own is clear. I've no right even to ask you for another kiss until—"

She closed his lips with the kiss he would not ask for, and said:

"I would just as lief go out there now and say to all that crowd that I love you and know that you are innocent—"

"No, no!" he broke in upon her passionate protestation. "No one shall couple your name with mine and pity you while they are doing it! The penitentiary may be my fate, for the rest of my life, but its shadow shall not touch yours. If I can clear myself of this charge I will come and ask you to be my wife, and openly ask your father's consent. If I can't—" He turned and looked out of the window, but instead of the trees and flowers that were there, he saw a big, grim building with a high stone wall all around it and armed guards on the bastions. Outside they heard the crowd calling for him. She understood his feeling, and taking his face between her palms she kissed his lips, whispering, "We will wait," and hurried from the room.

The crowd massed itself around the house, squatting on the sidewalk, perching on the fence, and filling the waiting vehicles, until Pierre came out and announced that the physician said little Paul would recover and would probably be none the worse for his experience. Everybody shouted "hurrah!" and somebody yelled, "three cheers for Frenchy!" The cheers were given, and Pierre stepped out on the sidewalk and began thanking them all for the kindness and sympathy they had shown and for their willing efforts to help him in his trouble. Then he launched into rhetorical praises of the country, the climate and the community, and from these turned to enthusiastic commendation of the man who had restored to him his lost child. "Among all the brave and noble men of this favored region," he exclaimed, "there is none braver, nobler, greater-hearted, more chivalrous, than he who has this day proved himself worthy of all our praises—Emerson Mead!" The crowd cheered loudly and called for Mead. Somebody shouted, "Three cheers for Emerson!" and the whole assemblage, Pierre leading, waved their hats and cheered again and again.

Then there arose a general cry for "Emerson Mead! Emerson Mead!" "Where is Emerson!" "Bring him out, Frenchy!" and Delarue rushed back into the house to find him. When Pierre entered the room which his daughter had just left it occurred to him, vaguely, that Mead looked unusually proud and happy, but as he himself, also, felt happy and proud, and filled with a genial glow over the success of his burst of oratory, it seemed quite proper that every one else should also be elated. So he thought nothing of it and hurried Mead out to the waiting crowd, where everybody, Democrats and Republicans alike, gathered about him and shook hands and made terse, complimentary remarks, until Jim Halliday presently took him away to his former quarters.

The crowd trailed off down Main street, and Judge Harlin and Colonel Whittaker stood treat together for the entire company, first at the White Horse and then at the Palmleaf saloon. The whistle of the train from the south, two hours late, broke in upon all this friendliness with a harsh reminder. Men suddenly recalled the fact that the mail from the north had come in long ago and had not brought the court order for which they had been waiting. The issues which had set the town at gun muzzles the day before again asserted themselves, and gradually the two factions began to mass, each on its own side of the street. In the midst of this the clerk of the court came out of the post-office with the missing order, which had gone astray in the mails and had just come in on the train from El Paso. Neither Joe Davis nor John Daniels could be found, and it was an hour later when they rode together into the town, coming back from the hanging of Antone Colorow.

Daniels read the official paper through and handed it to Davis. "Well, Joe," he said, "the court says you are sheriff now, and I reckon there's no goin' back of that. I hope the office will bring you better luck than it has me. Let's have a drink."



CHAPTER XXIII

Darkness so dense lay over the Fernandez plain that not the faintest outline of the rimming mountains penetrated its blackness. Like some palpable, suffocating substance it filled the plain and mounted far up into the air, even to the blue-black sky, whence a million gemming stars pierced it with their diamond lances.

Perched alone among the foothills of the Fernandez range, Juan Garcia's gray adobe house glimmered faintly through the darkness. Every sound about the house was hushed, and only the burro in the jacal down the hillside made known to the silent plain that he was still awake. The door into the portal opened softly, and with a quick, gliding, silent movement a dark figure came hastily out, closed the door, listened a moment, and then trod lightly across the portal and down to the road. There it paused, and Amada Garcia's face, anxious and wistful, framed in the black folds of her mantilla, looked back at the silent house. A deep, dry sob shook all her frame and she half turned back, as if irresolute. Then she drew from her breast a folded bit of paper, pressed it to her heart and her cheek, and kissed it again and again. She cast another regretful, longing look at the gray adobe house, and started off in the direction of Muletown. The faintly glimmering track of the sandy road opened slowly before her in the darkness, and, drawing her mantilla closely around her shoulders, she walked briskly along the dusty highway.

She kept the folded paper in her hand, pressing it to her lips and cheek with little cooing sounds of love. Once, standing still in the darkness and silence of the wide, black plain, she unfolded the letter and kissed the open sheet. It was too dark for her to see a single word upon the page, but she knew just where were "mi esposa," and "mi querida," and "mi corazon."

That afternoon, as she filled her olla at the spring, a young Mexican came riding by in brave attire of braided jacket and trousers and silver trimmed sombrero. She knew him well. Indeed, she had often bantered back his compliments and adroitly turned to merriment the sweet speeches he would rather have had her take in earnest. He stopped and gave her the letter, which he had brought all the way from the post-office at Muletown solely for excuse to see her. She poised the olla full of water upon her head and he walked up the hill to the house by her side, and while he talked to her mother she slipped stealthily out and hid in the jacal beside the burro for a chance to read the letter. When she returned she showed so plainly that his compliments and sweet speeches were distasteful to her that he sulkily left the house and galloped home again. Then her mother reproved her, telling her that she must not discourage the young man, because he was plainly in earnest in his attentions and would make the best and richest husband of all the young caballeros who came to the house, and that when next she saw him she must make amends for her unkind treatment. Amada listened with terror and rebellion in her heart; and in her brain there sprang into life the purpose which she set out to execute as soon as her father and mother were asleep.

In her pocket she had four dollars which she had saved from the sale of eggs and goat's-milk cheeses at Muletown, and which she had been carefully keeping for the purpose of buying a new mantilla with a deep, deep silk fringe the next time they should go to Las Plumas to celebrate the fiesta of its patron saint. And under one arm she carried some enchiladas and tamales, left from that night's supper.

She trudged on through the darkness and silence of the night, and, although she walked briskly, the frosty air now and again sent a shiver of cold through her body and made her draw her mantilla more closely across her chest. The staccato yelping of coyotes down in the plain was answered by short, sharp barks from the hills, and all night long the beasts kept up a running exchange of howls from one to the other side of the road. Sometimes Amada heard the stealthy rustle of the herbage as they neared the highway, or saw the gleaming of their eyes in the darkness. But she knew their cowardly nature too well to be afraid, and when they came too near, a pebble from her hand sent them scurrying away.

Hour after hour she followed the faint glimmer of the dusty road, over the low, rolling hills, across the sloping upland, and down into the edge of the Fernandez plain, steadily leaving behind her the slowly measured miles. At last the east began to glow above the Fernandez mountains and against the golden sky shone the thin, silver-white crescent of the old moon. The blackness of night gradually faded into the gray light of dawn, the sky blushed rosy red, the plain spread itself out before her, flooded with golden red sunlight, and still Amada held to the pace she had kept up all night long. Before her she saw columns of blue smoke rising from the chimneys of Muletown, and she thought longingly of the well in the plaza. But early though it was, she feared to be seen and questioned, for she knew many people in Muletown. So she turned from the main road, leaving the town far to her right, and struck across the trackless plain for the highway running toward the Hermosa mountains. When she reached it the sun was well up in the sky and she sat down on a hillock of sand to rest and eat her breakfast. She was very tired and it seemed good to lie still on the warm sand under the warm sun, so she rested there for a long time, thinking at first of the little gray adobe house far back in the foothills and wondering what the two old people would think and what they would do when they should find their one child gone and no trace left to tell them whither or why she had fled. These thoughts would bring the tears to her eyes, then she would open the letter and read it slowly over and over, and kiss the words of love, and, with soft little laughs and cooings, picture to herself her journey's end.

At last she saw a cloud of dust coming toward her from the direction of Muletown and, reminded of the possibility of being seen and questioned by some one she knew, she got up and hurried on her way. She knew her father and mother would not at once be alarmed over her departure. They would think she had risen early and gone up into the foothills to gather sweet herbs. Even after they should find that she was gone she knew that, in the leisurely fashion of the land and people of manana, it might be two or three days before they would hitch the horses to the wagon and drive to Muletown to ask if any one there had seen her. But she did not wish to be discovered in her flight by any one whom she knew, and so she hurried on, drawing her mantilla across her face until only her two great black eyes peeped from its folds.

The wagon behind her clattered up and its sole occupant, a middle-aged American, asked her in Spanish if she would like to ride. She hesitated, instinctively fearing speech with any one, and glanced shyly at the Americano, who was smiling down good-naturedly at her from the wagon. The man added that if she were going far she had better ride, for the road across the plain would soon be very hot. She considered that she did not know this man, that he would not know who she was, and thought how much more quickly she could cross that wide plain, so, with a grateful glance of her black eyes and a "muchas gracias, senor," she climbed up and sat down in the seat beside him. He asked her how far she was going, and she answered, to the other side of the Hermosa mountains. He replied that he was going to his mining camp in the mountains, but that he would drive her to the top of the pass, as the road was rocky and steep up the mountain side. He had some water in a canteen, from which she drank gratefully, and as midday approached, he shared with her his luncheon of bread and cheese, while she divided with him what remained of her tamales and enchiladas.

The man's kindly manner gave her confidence and the innate coquetry of her nature unconsciously began to assert itself. She talked gaily with him, her eyes by turns sparkled, invited and repelled, her mantilla almost covered her face one moment and the next was shaken gracefully down to her shoulders, leaving the coils of her hair shining black as a crow's wing in the sun. Her little, rosebud mouth pouted and smiled, and altogether she was so sweet and dainty and graceful that the middle-aged, gray-bearded Americano began to beam upon her with admiring eyes and to hover over her with jerky, heavy attempts at gallantry. He asked her name, but she took sudden alarm and answered only with a shrug of her shoulders and a swooning glance of her great black eyes. He put his arm about her waist and stooped to kiss her smiling mouth. She struggled away from him with a terrified, appealing cry, "No, no, senor!" of whose meaning there could be no mistake.

The man looked at her with wide, surprised eyes and exclaimed, "Well, I'll be damned!" and whipped up his horses. He glanced at her curiously several times and saw that she had edged away from him as far as she could and drawn the black folds of her mantilla well over her face. Presently he said, in her own tongue:

"Pardon me, senorita! I thought you would not care."

Her only answer was a little shiver, and they drove on in silence up the winding mountain road to the top of the pass. There she climbed out of the wagon and smiled back at the man with a grateful "muchas, muchas gracias, senor," and started down the road toward Las Plumas. He looked after her contemplatively for a moment and said to himself:

"Well, I'll be damned! But you never can tell how a Greaser's going to break out next!" Then he turned his team about and drove whistling back to his own road.

Amada's spirits rose as she looked down into the Rio Grande valley and saw the thread of glowing yellow foliage which marked the course of the acequia and the long, straggling procession of gray dots which she knew was the town of Las Plumas. She had been there twice with her father and mother when they had gone to join in the fiesta of Santa Guadaloupe. They had a "primo" there, one of those distant relatives of whom the Mexicans keep track so faithfully, but she meant to stay far away from his house and to be seen neither by him nor any of his family. She was sure she could reach the town by nightfall. She began to wonder if the train on which she meant to go away would come after that and what she should do with herself all night if it did not. The two visits she had made to Las Plumas had been the only times in her life when she had seen a railroad train, and she asked herself if she would be afraid when she should get into the car and it should go tearing across the country so fast. Ah, it would not go fast enough for her, not nearly fast enough! And unconsciously she quickened her steps to keep pace with her thoughts.

Presently mighty pains began to rack her body. She groaned and clenched her fists until the blood stained her palms. But still she hurried on, urging herself with thoughts of her journey's end, which began to loom distant and impossible through the haze of her suffering. The road wound over the rounded foothills, across the crest of one, down the hillside, and over another, and another, and another, until Amada thought their end would never come. She longed to lie down there in the dusty road and give herself up to the agony that held her body in its grip. But she so feared that she might yield to the temptation, and never rise again, that she ran down the hills and hurried her aching feet up the slopes until she panted for breath. An awful fear had come to terrify her soul. In its absorbing clutch she scarcely thought again of her wish to reach the railroad, and the love letter that had brought her comfort and sustained her strength was almost forgotten. If she should die there alone, with no priest to listen to the story of the sins that oppressed her soul, to give her the sacrament and whisper the holy names in her ear—ah, she could not—any suffering could be endured better than so terrible a fate. So she gathered up her strength and strove to force a little more speed into her aching, blistered feet and to endure the pains that gripped and racked her body, hoping only that she might reach the town and find the priest before the end should come.

At last the gray, rolling waves of the foothills smoothed themselves out and gently merged into the plain that rose from the valley below. So near seemed the houses and the long streets of the town, with the yellow cottonwoods flaming through its heart, that Amada felt encouraged. She hurried limping down the road, her black dress gray with dust, her mantilla pulled awry, her eyes wide with the terror that filled her soul, and her face tense and drawn with the pain that tortured her body.

She reached the edge of the town and saw people in the houses along the street. But she met none and she could not make up her mind to stop long enough to turn aside to one of the houses and ask the way to the priest's dwelling. Presently she saw two children come hand in hand through a gateway. One of them, a tiny boy with flaxen curls about his neck and a thin white face, put his hands on the shoulders of his baby girl companion and kissed the face she lifted to his. As she went away she turned and threw kisses to him and he waved his hand to her and called out "bye-bye, bye-bye."

Amada staggered against the fence and stood there resting a moment while she smiled at the pretty scene, notwithstanding her suffering and anxiety. When the child turned back into the yard she moved away from the fence and tried to go on. But her knees trembled and gave way, a cry of pain broke from her lips, and she fell upon the sidewalk. For woman's greatest extremity was upon her and she could go no farther.

Marguerite Delarue stood upon the veranda steps smiling fondly upon little Paul as he came up the walk. She had noticed the strange young Mexican woman leaning against the fence, and when Amada fell she ran down to the gate to see if the stranger were ill. The look of awful agony in Amada's face and eyes frightened her, and quickly calling the maid, the two women took her into the house and put her to bed. Then Marguerite sent in all haste for the physician, and herself removed the dusty shoes and stockings, bathed the swollen, blistered feet, took off the dust-filled garments and clothed the suffering girl in one of her own night robes.

All night long the physician worked, his face anxious and troubled, and in the early morning he gave up hope. For Amada lay in a stupor from which he thought there was no probability she would ever rouse. Suddenly she moaned, stretched out her hands and called, "My baby! Where is my baby?"

Marguerite knelt beside her and tried to tell her that the little one had never breathed, and Amada flung herself upon the girl's neck and gave herself up to such transports of grief that the physician sat down in dumb, amazed helplessness, sure that immediate collapse would cut short her cries of woe.

"But you can't tell a blessed thing about these Greasers," he said afterward to Marguerite. "I was sure she was going to die, and I reckon she would if she had not done the very thing that I thought would be certain to finish her anyway. Maybe I'll learn sometime that these Mexican women have got to let out their emotions or they would die of suppressed volcanoes."

When Marguerite had sympathized with and soothed and comforted her accidental guest Amada asked if she would send for the padre.

"I shall die very soon," she said, "and he must come at once. I thought I should die long before this, but God has let me live through all that time that I do not remember, when I was so nearly dead, only that the padre might come and make me ready for death."

After the priest had gone Marguerite went to the sick girl's room with a cup of gruel. Amada lay back on the pillow, her face gray with pallor against the background of her shining black hair. She kissed and fondled Marguerite's hand.

"You have been very good to me, senorita, but I shall have to trouble you one little time more, and then I shall be ready to die, and some one can ride over to the Fernandez mountains, beyond Muletown, and tell my father, Juan Garcia, that his daughter, Amada, is dead, and that she was very, very sorry to bring so much grief to him and her mother. You will tell him that, will you not, senorita? But you must not tell him about the nino, because they do not know—ah, senorita, you must not think that I am a—a bad woman! See! Here is a letter that says mi esposa! But they might not believe it—and they must not know—you will not tell them, senorita!"

"But you are not going to die!" said Marguerite encouragingly. "You will soon be strong again."

Amada shook her head. "No! I shall be dead before another morning comes. But now the padre says I must see el Senor Don Emerson Mead."

The girl's eyes caught a sudden, brief flicker which crossed Marguerite's face, and, weak though she was, she raised herself on one elbow, her black hair streaming past her face and her eyes shining. She caught Marguerite's hand, calling softly:

"Senorita! You love Don Emerson! Is it not so? I saw it in your face! Ah, senorita, it is good to love, is it not? Now you must bring Senor Mead to me here and I must tell him something that the padre says I must before I die. But you must not ask me what it is, for I can not tell you. I can not tell any one but Don Emerson."

"He is in the court room now," Marguerite replied, "and they would not let him leave. But his friend, Senor Ellhorn, is here, and I will see if I can find him."

Marguerite met Nick Ellhorn coming out of John Daniel's office with a broad smile curling his mustaches toward his eyes. He had been on a still hunt for his Chinese queue, and had run at once upon the certainty that something had happened which several people would like to keep quiet. And he had not only recovered the pig tail, but had found out what had been done and who had done it.

"Oh, Mr. Ellhorn!" exclaimed Marguerite, "I am so glad to find you! There is a Mexican girl at my house—she dropped down dreadfully ill at my gate last night and I took her in—who wants to see Mr. Mead. She says her father is Juan Garcia, and that he lives away beyond Muletown, in the Fernandez mountains. The padre confessed her this morning and now she says he told her that she must tell Emerson Mead something before she dies. I do not know what it is, and she says she can not tell any one except Mr. Mead. Will you come to the house and find out what she wants?"

Ellhorn's eyes opened wide, but he kept an impassive face. "Amada Garcia! What the—whatever is she here for, and how did she get here!"

"I think she must have walked, for her feet were blistered."

"Walked! Walked from old Garcia's ranch! Good God! Well, I sure reckon she must have something to say. I'll go right along and see her."

When Nick Ellhorn came out of the Delarue house he heard the whistle of the train from the north.

"I've just time to make it," he thought. "I can't stop to say a word to anybody about this business, or I'll miss this train. Well, I reckon I might just as well not say anything about it, anyway, as long as Tommy isn't here, until I get back—if I ever get back! They'll be only too glad to snake me in down there, if they get the chance. I'll just have to make a quick scoot across the line, and trust to the luck of the Irish army! If Tommy was only here we'd get this thing through, if we had to wade through hell and tote home the back doors. But I can't stop to wait for company. I'll try it alone, and I sure reckon I'll be too smart for 'em!"



CHAPTER XXIV

Emerson Mead's trial had been in progress nearly two weeks, but most of the time had been exhausted in impaneling a jury. Almost the entire male population of Las Plumas had filed between the opposing lawyers and, for one reason or another, had been excused. At last a jury had been chosen, not because its members were satisfactory to either side, but because both sides had exhausted their peremptory challenges and neither could find further objection which the judge would allow.

Thomson Tuttle arrived soon after Nick Ellhorn's departure, and was alternately puzzled and indignant over his absence. He felt sure that Nick had gone away on some expedition of importance and probably of danger. He was puzzled to think what it could possibly be, and indignant that Nick had thus risked himself without the aid and protection of his best friend.

"It was plumb ridiculous for him to go off alone like that," he complained to Judge Harlin. "He knew I'd be along in a day or two, and here he goes flirtin' the gravel off the road all alone as if I was some didn't-know-it-was-loaded kind of a fool who couldn't handle a gun! He'll sure get into some kind of trouble if I'm not with him!"

Interest in the trial was universal and intense, and during the sessions of the court, especially after the taking of testimony began, the streets of the town were well nigh deserted, while a large part of the population crowded the court room, swarmed in the corridors, and filled the windows. Those who could not get into the court-house gathered in groups on the outside and discussed the news and the rumors, which came in plentiful supply from its doors.

The prosecution had put on several witnesses, employees of the Fillmore Cattle Company, who had sworn to the ill-feeling between Mead and young Whittaker, and one who had been a witness of the quarrel between them, just previous to Whittaker's disappearance, when Mead had threatened the young man's life. Then Colonel Whittaker took the stand. It was rumored that after him would be given the testimony of an eye-witness of the murder, and an even larger crowd than usual sought the court-house that afternoon. Two score of women sat comfortably in a space fitted with chairs at one end of the judge's desk. But the body of the room was jammed with a standing crowd of men, both Mexicans and Americans. Late comers crowded the corridor, and those who could get them mounted chairs outside the door. Inside the room a row of men swung their heels from each window seat, while outside another row stood on the ledges and looked over their heads.

Colonel Whittaker told the story of how his son had set out from the ranch to come to town and had never been seen alive again. He declared that the young man had no enemies except the prisoner and that there was no possible explanation of his disappearance except that he had been murdered. Then he told of the work of the searching party which he had taken to the White Sands, and of the body which they had found. He had identified this corpse as the body of his son, and on the sketched outline of a man's back he located the position of the three bullet holes by which the young man had come to his death. The shirt, with the initials worked in the collar, the ring, scarfpin, memorandum book and envelopes that had been taken from the body were placed before him and he identified them all as having belonged to his son. The crowded court room was still, with the silence of tense expectancy. Every neck was craned and every eye was fixed on these articles as one by one they were held up before him and then passed on to the judge's desk.

A slight disturbance at the door, as of people unwillingly moving back, fell upon the strained hush. Some one was forcing his way through the crowd. The witness leaned back in his chair, waiting for another question, and the lawyers consulted together for a moment. Then the prosecuting attorney asked the witness if he had positively identified the body as that of his missing son, William Whittaker.

"I did, sir," replied Colonel Whittaker. As the words left his lips his gaze fell past the attorney upon two men who had just struggled out of the crowd and into the free railed space in front of the judge's desk. His jaw fell, his pale face turned an ashen gray, his eyes opened wide, and, with trembling hands upon the arms of his chair, he unconsciously lifted himself to his feet. The lawyers, the judge, and the jury followed his gaze. Some sprang to their feet and some fell back in their chairs, their mouths open, but dumb with amazement. All over the court room there was a shuffling of feet and a craning of necks, and a buzzing whisper went back from the foremost ranks.

Nick Ellhorn was there, tall and slender and smiling, with a happy, triumphant look overspreading his handsome face. By his side was a young man, dark-skinned, black-haired and black-mustached, who looked ashamed and self-conscious. Ellhorn tucked one hand into his arm and urged him to a quicker pace. Nick's eye sought Emerson Mead and as Mead's glance flashed from the stranger's face to his, Nick's lid dropped in a significant wink. Mead leaned back in his chair, a look of amused triumph on his face, as he watched the scene before him and waited for it to come to its conclusion.

Slowly Colonel Whittaker stepped forward, trembling, with a look upon his face that was almost fear. The crowd was pushing and pressing toward the center of interest, and everywhere wide eyes looked out from amazed, incredulous faces. Nick Ellhorn and his companion slowly edged their way between the tables and chairs, the young man advancing reluctantly, with downcast face, until they stood in front of Colonel Whittaker. Then he looked up, and exclaimed in a choking voice:

"Father! I am not dead!"



CHAPTER XXV

"It was Amada Garcia put me on," said Nick Ellhorn to Emerson Mead and Tom Tuttle, as the three sat in Mead's room, whither they went at once to hear Nick's story. "One morning the first of this week Miss Delarue came runnin' up to me on the street and said Amada was sick at her house and had walked all the way in from Garcia's ranch and had something to tell that she wouldn't say to anybody but Emerson. I went over to see if she would tell me what she wanted, and Emerson can thank her, and the padre, for gettin' out of this scrape with the laugh on the other side. She thought she was goin' to die and had unloaded her soul on to the padre, and he had ordered her to tell Emerson Mead what she had told him. I reckon the little witch wouldn't have peeped about it to anybody if the padre hadn't made her. She didn't want to say a word to me, and at first she said she wouldn't, but I finally made her understand she couldn't see Emerson, and I swore by all the saints I could think of that I'd tell him and nobody else exactly what she said. So then she whispered in my ear that Senor Mead didn't kill Senor Whittaker, and I inched her along until I got out of her that Will Whittaker wasn't dead.

"That was all she meant to tell me, but I was bound to get all she knew. And I got it, but I want to tell you right now, boys, that I had a hell of a time gettin' it. Every time I got a new thing out of her she'd make me get down on my knees and kiss the crucifix and swear by a dozen fresh saints that I wouldn't tell anybody but Don Emerson, and that he wouldn't tell anybody else, and that nothin' should happen to Don Will because she had told it.

"She finally admitted that she and Will Whittaker had been secretly married away last spring and had never said a word about it to anybody. By that time I felt pretty sure that it was Mr. Will himself who had made a killin', and I sprung my suspicion on her and threatened her with the padre and swore a lot of things by a whole heap of fresh saints, and she finally told me just what had happened.

"It seems that a cousin of hers—one of their everlastin' primos in the sixty-third degree, I reckon—came up from down along the line somewheres, and she was so glad to see him and he was so glad to see her that he hugged her and stooped over to kiss her—I reckon likely she'd been flirtin' her eyes and her shoulders at him—when bang! bang! bang! and he dropped dead at her feet and there was esposo Will in the door, mad with jealousy and ready to kill her too. Say, boys!" Nick stopped short, the stream of his narrative interrupted by a certain memory. "Say, that was what it was!" And he slapped his thigh with delight at having solved a mystery. "That's the reason she had such fantods when I wanted to kiss her that day last summer! It was just because she happened to remember this other time!"

The others smiled and chuckled and Mead said: "You know I told you then, Nick, it wasn't because she didn't like your looks!"

"Well, he was ready to kill her, too, but she threw herself on him and begged for her life and swore the man was her cousin and there was no harm, and presently Will's companion came runnin' in and they got the young man cooled off. He and the other man talked together a little while and then they put Will's clothes on the corpse and Will dressed himself in the dead man's and they took the dead body away in the wagon, and Amada washed up all the blood stains and never let a soul know what had happened, because Will told her if she did her father would sure have him arrested and hung. And he made her swear to be a faithful wife to him and promised to send for her as soon as he could.

"So she waited for word from him all summer, and the other day there came a letter, and the same day she found out that her mother meant for her to marry some young Mexican blood at Muletown. Then she made up her mind to go to Will, although he had told her he couldn't send for her for another month or two. That night she started off alone in the dark and walked to Muletown. Somebody gave her a ride across the plain and then she walked to Plumas from the Hermosa pass.

"I made up my mind right then and there that I'd yank that young scrub back to Plumas quicker'n hell could singe a cat, but she wouldn't tell me where he was. And maybe I didn't have a skin-your-teeth sort of a time gettin' it out of her! I just tell you that little girl is cute enough to take care of herself most anywhere, and don't you forget it! I coaxed her and she'd coax back, and I threatened her and she'd come back at me with all the things I'd sworn not to tell, and I wheedled her as Irish as the pigs in Drogheda, and she'd lie back on the pillow and smile at me—and all the time just lookin' too sweet and pretty and sick—well, it was the hardest job I ever tackled. Boys, I sure reckon that little handful of a girl would have been too many for me and we'd have been palaverin' yet if she hadn't gone too weak to talk any more. I saw she was mighty near played out, and I just sicked myself on for all I was worth. I felt ornery enough to go off and get horned by a steer, but I reckoned I sure had to. She gave up at last, when she couldn't hold out any longer, and agreed to let me see the envelope her letter had come in if I'd kiss the crucifix and swear by a few more saints that I wouldn't let anybody touch Will, and swear over again on my knees everything I'd promised her before. I finally got through with all the religious doin's she could think of, and then I lit out for the train. I heard it comin' when I left French's house, and I made a run for it, which was why I didn't tell Judge Harlin where I was goin'. I couldn't stop to say a word to anybody without missin' the train and losin' a day.

"The only clue I had was that he was at Chihuahua, and at work at something, I didn't know what, and I thought likely he was pasearing around under an assumed name, which he was. I nosed around for two days, layin' low and keepin' mighty quiet, and you better guess I made a quick scoot through Juarez, too."

The others grinned broadly and as Nick stopped to light a fresh cigar Tom said:

"I sure thought, Nick, that you'd never get back alive, for I knew you-all must have gone off some place you'd no business to go alone, and I'd have started off on a blind hunt for you in another day."

"Well, I run across him by accident on the street one evening, and you ought to have seen him turn white and shaky when I stepped up and spoke to him. The boy's nerve's all gone, and you know he used to have the devil's own grit. You-all saw how he acted when I got him into the court room this afternoon. I reckon it takes all the sand out of a fellow to live in the dark and be all the time afraid something's goin' to drop, the way he's done all summer.

"'Hullo, Will,' says I, and then I took pity on him and showed my hand right from the start. But I'd sized him up all in a minute, and I reckoned that would work best anyway. 'I haven't got any warrant for you,' says I, 'and I don't mean to arrest you, and I've sworn to Amada Garcia not to let any harm happen to you, but I've got a proposition I want to talk over with you, if you'll take me somewheres where we can be private.' For I didn't mean to let him out of my sight again until I got him into the court room at Plumas, and I didn't, neither. He took me to his room and we chinned the thing over for two or three hours. He knew that everybody thought he was dead and that his body had been found, and that Emerson was being tried for his murder. But he'd started out on that lay and he was afraid to go back on it.

"He told me the whole story, on my promise to keep it secret. I told him I'd have to tell it to you-all, because Emerson had the right to know it, and Tommy would be sure to go makin' some bad break if he didn't know it, but that I'd give him my word of honor it shouldn't go outside of us three. He was just gone plum' crazy on Amada, and one day he was at her house when a justice of the peace from Muletown came along. The old folks were out in the fields and for a good, plump fee the justice married them right then and there. They had no witnesses, and it happened that the justice died in a week—it was old Crowby, from Muletown, you remember him. Will was deathly afraid his father would find it out and be bull roaring mad about it and hist him out of the country, and so he didn't dare say a word about it, and he made Amada keep it secret, too. Well, the boy's young, and I reckon that's some excuse for him, but I'll be everlastingly horn-spooned if I think his father's got much reason to be proud of him.

"Then came the day when he stepped to the door and saw that Mexican primo hugging her, and he swore to me that all in a flash he was so wild with anger and jealousy he didn't know what he was doin' until he heard the report and the man dropped dead—that he didn't remember drawin' or takin' aim, or anything but just wantin' to kill. When he cooled down and realized what he had done he was in a regular panic. If he gave himself up the facts about the wedding would have to come out, in order to protect Amada, and then his father would roar, and probably cast him off if he wouldn't give her up, and if he escaped conviction for the murder the primo's relatives would be dead sure to get even with him. The only way he could see out of it was to hide the body and skip. The man who was with him—a cow-boy they had just hired who had come out of the mountains to make a stake so he could go prospectin' again—Bill Frank was his name, and I told him yes, I knew him—well, this man offered to see him out for the stake he'd expected to have to work some time for, and as Will had some money in his clothes they made the bargain and skipped. They changed the clothing and carried the body in their wagon up to the White Sands and buried it. It was them that held you up, Tom, that night last spring, and it was Will Whittaker, in the Mexican's duds, that you thought was a Mexican, who slunk around in the bushes and held the gun on you part of the time. They had the Mexican's body in the wagon and they didn't mean to allow any curiosity about it or about their business, and you'd have dropped dead in your tracks if you'd shown any."

"I knew that very well all the time I was with 'em," Tom answered quietly.

"When they got nearly to the railroad they burned the wagon and killed the horses, and Will scooted for Mexico, and he's been in Chihuahua ever since.

"'My boy,' I says to him, 'you've got to come back with me.' 'I can't,' says he, 'it will be my everlasting ruin if I do.' 'Face the music like a man,' I said, 'and get out of it what you can.' I could see by his eyes that he was honin' to come back, but he was almighty afraid, I reckon mostly on Amada's account. He's plum' daft about her—and I don't know as I blame him very much—and he told me he had planned to get her down there soon.

"'How can I go back?' says he. 'I'll be arrested and tried and probably convicted.' 'No, you won't,' says I. 'You go back with me and get Emerson Mead out of this scrape and I'll give you my word of honor you won't be arrested.' 'But what can I say?' he says. 'How can I explain?' 'Hell!' says I. 'Explain nothin'! Tell your father as much or as little as you like, and if Colonel Whittaker walks down Main street with his head up and his mouth shut I reckon nobody's goin' to ask him any impudent questions. If you want any help yourself you've got Nick Ellhorn and Emerson Mead and Tommy Tuttle behind you, and if you think them three couldn't send the devil himself sashayin' down the Rio Grande you'd better not say so to yours truly. If you don't want to stay there, take Amada and get out, and if your father won't set you up somewheres we three will see that you have what you need. And whatever he does we'll give you a thousand apiece anyway.'

"'I wish I dared!' says he. 'Will Whittaker,' says I, 'Amada Garcia started out to come to you with only four dollars in her pocket, and she walked in the night nearly all the way to Plumas, and then she nearly died givin' premature birth to your child, because she had tried to find you.' With that he jumped up and grabbed my arm and could hardly speak, for I hadn't told him about any of that business before.

"'She isn't dead,' says I, 'but you may thank Miss Delarue that she isn't. The child was born dead. But do you think, after all that, you-all can do any less than go back and marry her again, with a priest and a ring and a white dress and all the rest of it? Do you think, after that, you-all can do any less than pretend you're a man, and ever face yourself in the glass again without smashin' it?'

"He dropped back in his chair with his face in his hands and cried, actually cried. But I sure reckon he was shook up pretty sudden by what I told him about Amada. I didn't say any more, but I just made up my mind that if he hung back after that I'd tie my Chiny pig tail around his neck and yank him back to Plumas like a yellow dog at the end of a string.

"After a little while he said he'd go. I knew he meant it, but I was so almighty afraid he'd go back on it if he got thinkin' about his father and skip on me that I didn't let him out of my sight while he was awake, and at night I tied his arm fast to mine with my pig tail.

"Well, when we finally got to Plumas I just concluded Emerson's neck wasn't in danger for another hour, and that I'd better set that little girl straight the first thing I did, before the young chap got under his father's thumb. I knew he meant all right and loved her like hell's blazes, but he's more afraid of his father than a self-respectin' young man of his age ought to be. So we went straight to Miss Delarue's. I tell you what, boys, that Miss Delarue is a regular royal flush. There ain't another girl can stack up with her in the whole territory. I took Will Whittaker in and told her how matters stood, and you ought to have seen how pleased she was! If it had been her own weddin' she couldn't have been more interested, or looked happier. She was as glad to see Will as if he'd been her own brother, and all because she likes poor little Amada, and was glad to see her made happy, for of course it didn't concern her any other way."

A little smile moved Mead's lips as he heard this, and he turned his eyes away to hide the happy look he felt was in them, for he knew how deep were Marguerite's reasons to be glad the runaway had returned.

"While I went down-town to hunt up the padre," Nick went on, "she fixed Amada up with a white veil—you know these Mexican girls hardly think they've been married if they haven't had a white veil on—and a bunch of white flowers and a white sack that was all lace and ribbons over her night gown—for Amada's in bed yet, and had to be propped up on the pillows—and then she and I stood up with 'em and put our names down as witnesses. Then I marched the young man up to the court-house, and you-all know what happened there."

"I saw you talking with Colonel Whittaker," said Mead. "Did you tell him about the wedding?"

"You bet I did! I was plum' determined he should hear some straight talk about that, and if that little girl don't have a fair show with the Whittaker family it won't be my fault."

"What did you-all say to him?" Tom asked.

"Oh, I gave it to him straight from the shoulder! 'Colonel Whittaker,' I said, 'I've brought your son back to you alive, and I'm goin' to see to it that no harm comes to him because he's been away. He can tell you as much or as little as he likes, but I know the whole story, and I want to tell you right now that if anybody tries to get him into trouble about it they've got Nick Ellhorn and Tom Tuttle and Emerson Mead to buck against, and there's my hand on it. But you needn't thank me. You can thank a little Mexican girl whose name was Amada Garcia, but it's Amada Whittaker now. They have been married without any proof of it ever since last spring, but they are married tight and fast now, padre and witnesses and the whole thing, and I helped 'em to do it not an hour ago. Now, keep your temper, Colonel,' says I, 'and wait till I get through. I know you'll be disappointed and mad, but you'd better keep cool and make the best of it, for the girl's just as good as you are, if she is a Mexican, and she's a whole heap too good for your son. And she's just the cutest and prettiest little piece of calico you ever laid your eyes on, in the bargain. Now, don't try to step in and make a mess of this, Colonel,' I said, 'for you won't succeed if you do try, because the boy has got Emerson and Tom and me to back him, and if you-all don't play a father's part toward him we will. If you should get him away from her you'd just simply send your son to the devil, and he'd be the devil's own brat if he let you do it.

"'Now, Colonel,' says I, 'you-all better go and make a call on your new daughter-in-law, and find out from Will what she's done to protect him and get to him, and if you don't take her right into camp you're not the gentleman and the judge of beauty I take you for. Besides, Colonel' says I, 'if Amada gets the right kind of treatment from you and your folks, my bargain with Will holds. If she don't—well, I'll keep my word, of course, but there's likely to be consequences.'"

Nick's narrative came to its end and for a few minutes the three men smoked in silence. Then Ellhorn turned half reluctantly to Mead:

"Say, Emerson, that was mighty queer about those three bullet holes. We sure thought nobody but you-all could do that."

Mead smiled, thinking of Marguerite. "Even if he was shot in the back?" he said quietly.

Nick and Tom looked at each other with chagrin on their faces. "We-all never thought of that!" Tom exclaimed.

"And he did need killin' so damn bad," said Nick, "and you-all never said a word to deny it."

"I don't usually deny things I'm charged with," said Mead.

"That's so, Emerson, you don't," assented Tom.

"People are welcome to believe anything they like about me," Mead went on, "and I don't intend to belittle myself askin' 'em not to. It's all right, boys. I didn't blame you for believin' I'd done it But I did think you'd notice he'd been shot in the back. I'm goin' out now. I'll see you later." And he hurried off down Main street to find Pierre Delarue.



CHAPTER XXVI

The February sunshine lay warm and bright and still over Las Plumas and the sky bent low and blue and cloudless above the town. Bright feathered birds were darting through the orchards and trilling their nesting songs, the peach tree buds were showing their pink noses, and the promise of spring was everywhere. In the big, wide hall of Pierre Delarue's house Marguerite stood beside the door of her room, talking with Emerson Mead, while he clumsily buttoned her gloves. She was dressed in a traveling gown, and as his glance wandered over her figure his eyes shone with admiration. Tall though he was and superb of physique, her head reached his shoulder and her figure matched his in its own strength and beauty.

"Tom and Nick look as forlorn as two infant orphans," he was saying to her. "You would think I had died instead of getting married. Nick has hinted that he means to go on a spree, and Tom says he'll lock him up in their room and sit on his chest for a week if he tries to make that kind of a break."

"Do you think he will?" Marguerite asked.

"Sit on him? Yes, I think likely. He's done it before, and it's about the only thing that will keep Nick sober when he has made up his mind that he wants to get drunk. It's a good plan to keep Nick sober, too, for when he gets drunk most anything's likely to happen."

"No, I meant, do you think he will get drunk?"

Emerson shrugged his shoulders. "I reckon that will depend on whether Tom goes to sleep or not."

"Where are they?"

"Out on the porch with Bye-Bye."

They went out on the veranda where Tom and Nick were standing, and Marguerite put a hand on the arm of each, looking up in their faces with smiling earnestness. "I wonder," she said, "if I could ask you boys to do something for me while we are gone?"

They turned toward her eagerly. "You bet we'll do anything you-all want us to, Mrs.—Mrs.—" Nick tried to say "Mrs. Mead," choked a little, and ended with "Mrs. Emerson." And "Mrs. Emerson" she was to him and Tom from that time forth.

"What can we-all do?" asked Tom.

"Why, I've been hoping you wouldn't mind looking after Paul a little bit for me. I am so afraid he will miss me, because I've always been with him. The housekeeper will take good care of him, of course, but I know he will be lonely if there is nothing to distract his mind. And I couldn't be happy, even on my wedding journey, if I thought my little Bye-Bye was crying for me."

"Don't you worry, Mrs. Emerson," Nick exclaimed. "We'll give him so much fun he won't know you're gone. I'll bring my horse and take him to ride every day."

"We'll buy all the playthings in town for him."

"We'll tote him around all the time. It'll give us something to do and keep us out of mischief. He shan't shed a tear while you're gone."

"Here, Bye-Bye," called Tom, "come and ride on my shoulder." And mounted on that big, high pedestal the child was marched up and down the porch, laughing and clapping his hands. "We'll stay and amuse him while you-all go to the depot, so he won't cry after you."

"I'll make him some reins out of my Chiny pigtail," said Nick. "You-all go right along, Mrs. Emerson, and don't you worry once. He shan't whimper while you're gone, and he'll have such a good time he'll be sorry to see you come home."

Marguerite looked back from the carriage window as they drove away and saw little Paul holding fast to the middle of Nick's precious queue, laughing and shouting, while two tall figures attached to its ends pranced and kicked and cavorted up and down the veranda.

THE END



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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Minor changes have been made to correct obvious typesetters's errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent.

THE END