"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 h.e.l.l 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce 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 sc.r.a.pe 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 n.o.body 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 h.e.l.l 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 pa.s.s.

"I made up my mind right then and there that I'd yank that young scrub back to Plumas quicker'n h.e.l.l 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 a.s.sumed 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 sc.r.a.pe 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?' 'h.e.l.l!' 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 n.o.body'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 gla.s.s 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 h.e.l.l'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."