"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 n.o.body 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 d.a.m.n 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," a.s.sented 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 b.u.t.toned 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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