Then he lowered down his chin and took his chest in and said, sort of soft and gentle: "Let go of Mr. Cherry"s legs and come and kiss me, my darling! And please wipe the tears from my eyes--with my poor shackled hands I can"t!"
The woman give Cherry"s legs one more rousing jerk, and said, sort of imploring: "Save him! Save him for his old mother"s sake, and for mine, and for the sake of our little girls!" Then she got up and wiped away at Santa Fe"s eyes with her pocket-handkerchief, and went to kissing him for all she was worth--holding on to him tight around the neck with both arms.
The boys was all as uncomfortable as they could be--except Cherry seemed to feel better at getting his legs loose--and some of "em fairly snuffled out loud. They stood around looking at each other, and n.o.body said a word. Then Santa Fe kind of wrenched loose from her kissing him and spoke up. "Which is it to be, gentlemen?" he said. "Is it the telegraph-pole--or is it another chance?" The woman moaned fit to break her heart.
The silence, except for her moaning, hung on for a good minute. Then Hill broke it. "Oh, d.a.m.n it all!" said Hill--it was Hill"s way to talk sort of careless--"Give him another chance!"
That settled things. In another minute they had the handcuffs off of Santa Fe and all the boys was shaking hands with him. And then they was asking to be introduced to his wife--she was all broke to bits, and crying, and kept her veil down--and shaking hands with her too; and they ended off by giving Charley and his wife three cheers. You never seen folks so pleased! The only one out of it was the Denver undertaker--who couldn"t be expected to feel like the rest of us; and was in a hurry, anyway, to put through his job so he could start back home on the night train.
"You come along with me in the coach, Charley," Hill said--Hill always was a friendly sort of a fellow--"and I"ll jerk you over to Santa Fe in no time, and you can start right off East by the 6.30 train.
That"ll be quicker"n going up to Pueblo, and it"ll be cheaper too. The ride across sha"n"t cost you a cent. If you and your lady come in my coach, you come free. And I say, boys," Hill went on, "let"s open a pot for them little girls! Here"s my hat, with ten dollars in it for a warmer. I"d make it more if I could--and n.o.body"ll hurt my feelings by raising my call."
All hands made a rush for Hill"s hat--and when Hill handed it to that poor woman, who had her pocket-handkerchief up to her eyes under her veil and was crying so she shook all over, there was more"n two hunderd dollars in it, mostly gold. "This is for them children, ma"am, with all our compliments," Hill said--and he and Charley helped her hold her shawl up, so it made a kind of a bag, while he turned his hat upside-down.
"Speaking for my dear little girls, I thank you from my heart, gentlemen," Santa Fe said. "This is a royal gift, and it comes at a mighty good time. Some part of it must be used to pay our way East--back to the dear old home, where those little angels are waiting for us sitting cuddled up on their grandmother"s knees. What remains, I promise you gentlemen, shall be a sacred deposit--to be used in buying little dresses, and hats, and things, for my sweet babes. I hate to use a single cent of it for anything else, but the fact is just now I"m right down to the hardpan." And everybody--remembering Santa Fe"d took advantage of being on his drunk to get cleaned out at Denver Jones"s place the night before the shooting--knowed this was true.
"Well, Charley, we must be andying along," Hill said. "Waiting here to see you hung has put me more"n an hour behind on my schedule. I"ll have to hustle them mules like h.e.l.l"--that was the careless way Hill talked always--"if we"re going to ketch that 6.30 train."
Everybody shook hands for good-bye with Santa Fe and his wife, and Santa Fe had his pockets stuffed full of seegars, and more bottles was put in the coach than was needed--and then we give "em three cheers again, and away they went down the slope to the bridge over the Rio Grande, with Hill whipping away for all he was worth and cussing terrible at his mules. Whipping done some good, Hill used to say; but cuss-words was the only sure things to make mules go.
"Well, boys," said Cherry, when the yelling let up a little. "I guess getting shut of Santa Fe that way is better"n hanging him; and I guess--with him and the Hen and the rest of "em fired out of it--we"ve got Palomitas purified about down to the ground. And what"s to all our credits, we"ve ended off by doing a first-cla.s.s good deed! Them little girls"ll be pleased and happy when their mother gets back to "em with our money in her pocket, and brings along in good shape their father--who"d just about be in the thick of his kicking on that telegraph-pole, by this time, if she hadn"t romped in the way she did on the closest kind of a close call!
"And now let"s turn to and get poor old Bill planted. We"ve kind of lost sight of Bill in the excitement--and we owe him a good deal. If Santa Fe hadn"t started the reform movement by shooting him, we"d still be going on in the same old way. You may say it"s all Bill"s doings that Palomitas has been give the clean-up it wanted, and wanted bad!"
When Hill drove into town next afternoon--coming to the deepo, where most of the boys was setting around waiting for the train to pull out--he was laughing so he was most tumbling off the box.
"I"ve got the d.a.m.nedest biggest joke on this town," Hill said--Hill had the habit of talking that off-hand way--"that ever was got on a town since towns begun!"
Hill was so full of it he couldn"t hold in to make a story. He just went right on blurting it out: "Do you boys know who that wife of Charley"s was that blew in yesterday from Denver? I guess you don"t!
Well, I do--she was the Sage-Brush Hen! Yes sirree," Hill said, so full of laugh he couldn"t hardly talk plain; "that"s just who she was!
All along from the first there was something about her shape I felt I ought to know, and I was dead right. It come out while we was stopping at Bouquet"s place at Pojuaque for dinner--they both knowing I"d see it was such a joke I wouldn"t spoil it by giving it away too soon. She went in the back room at Bouquet"s to have a wash and a brush up--and when she come along to table she"d got over being Charley"s wife and was the Hen as good as you please! She hadn"t a gray hair or a wrinkle left nowhere, and was like she always was except for her black clothes. When she saw my looks at seeing her, she got to laughing fit to kill herself--just the same gay old Hen as ever; and she always was, you know, the most comical-acting sort of a woman, when she wanted to be, anybody ever seen.
"When she quieted down her laughing a little she told me the whole story. She and Charley"d fixed it up between "em, she said; and she"d whipped up to Denver on one train and down again on the next--buying quick her gray hair and her black outfit, and getting somebody she knowed at the Denver theatre to fix her face for her so she"d look all broke up and old. She nearly gave the whole thing away, she said, when Charley asked her about the little girls. He just throwed that in, without her expecting it--and it set her to laughing and shaking so, back of her veil, that we"d a-ketched up with her sure, she said, if Charley hadn"t whispered quick to pretend to cry and carry off her laughing that way. She had another close call, she said, when Charley was talking about the old farm in Ohio--she all the time knowing for a fact he was born in East St. Louis, and hadn"t any better acquaintance with Ohio than three months in the Cincinnati jail. Charley ought to go on the stage, she says--where she"s been herself. She says he"d lay Forrest and Booth and all them fellows out cold!
"She and Charley just yelled while she was telling it all to me; and they was laughing "emselves "most sick all the rest of the way across to Santa Fe. When we got into town I drove "em to the Fonda; and then the Hen rigged herself out in good clothes she bought at Morse"s--it was the pot we made up for them sweet babes paid for her outfit--and give her old black duds to one of the Mexican chambermaids. They allowed--knowing I could be trusted not to go around talking in Santa Fe--they"d stay on at the Fonda till to-morrow, anyway: so I might let "em know, when I get back again, how you boys took it when you was told how they"d played it on you right smack down to the ground!
"Charley sent word he hoped there wouldn"t be no hard feeling--as there oughtn"t to be, he said, seeing he was so drunk when he shot Bill it was just an accident not calling for hanging; and the whole thing, anyways, being all among friends. And the Hen sent word she guessed the two of "em had give you a first-cla.s.s theatre show worth more"n you put in my hat for gate-money, and you all ought to be pleased. And they both said they"d been treated so square by you fellows they"d be real sorry to have any misunderstanding, and they hoped you"d take the joke friendly--the same as they meant it themselves."
Well, of course we all did take it friendly--it wouldn"t a-been sensible to take as good a joke as that was any other way. Cherry was the only one that squirmed a little. "It"s on us, and it"s on us good," Cherry said; "and I"m not kicking--only you boys haven"t got no notion what it is having a woman a-grabbing fast to your legs and groaning at you, and how dead sick it makes you feel!"
Cherry stopped for a minute, and looked as if he was a"most sick with just thinking about it. Then he sort of shook himself and got a brace on, and went ahead with his chin up like he was making a speech in town-meeting--and it turned out, as it don"t always in town-meeting speeches, what he said was true.
"Gentlemen," said Cherry, "there"s this to be said, and we have a right to say it proudly: we"ve give this town the clean-up we set out to give it, and from now on it"s going to stay clean. There won"t be any more doings; or, if there is, the Committee "ll know the reason why. Palomitas is purified, gentlemen, right down to the roots; and I reckon I"m mistook bad--worse"n I was when the Hen was yanking my legs about--if the Committee hasn"t sand enough and rope enough to keep on keeping it pure!"
THE END