Some of them summer days in Palomitas was that hot they’d melt the stuffing out of a lightning-rod, and you could cook eggs in the pockets of your pants. When things was that way the town was apt to get quieted down––most being satisfied to take enough drinks early to make it pleasant spending the rest of the day sleeping ’em off somewheres in the shade. Along late in the afternoon, though, the wind always breezed down real cool and pleasant from the mountains––and then the boys would wake up and get a brace on, and whatever was going to happen would begin.

Being that sort of weather, nobody was paying no attention worth speaking of to 164 nothing: and when the Denver train come in––being about three hours late, like it had a way of being, after a wash-out––the place was in such a blister that pretty much all you could hear to show anybody was alive in Palomitas was snores. Besides Wood––who had to be awake to do his work when the train got there––and the clump of Mexicans that always hung around the deepo at train-time, there wasn’t half a dozen folks with their eyes open in the whole town.

Santa FÉ Charley was one of the few that was awake and sober. He made a point, Santa FÉ did, of being on hand when the train come in because there always was chances somebody might be aboard he could do business with; and he had to keep sober, mostly, same as I’ve said, or he couldn’t a-done his work so it would pay. He used to square things up––when he really couldn’t stand the strain no longer––by knocking off dealing and having a good one lasting about a week at a time. It was while he was on one of them tears of his, going it worse’n usual, he got cleaned out in Denver Jones’s 165 place––and him able, when he hadn’t a jag on, to wipe up the floor with Denver!––and then went ahead the next day, being still jagged, and shot poor old Bill Hart. But them is matters that happened a little later, and will be spoke of further on.

When the train pulled in alongside the deepo platform it didn’t seem at first there was nobody on it but the usual raft of Mexicans with bundles in the day-coach––who all come a-trooping out, cluttered up with their queer duds, and went to hugging their aunts and uncles who was waiting for ’em in real Mexican style. Charley looked the lot over and seen there was nothing in it worth taking time to; and then he got his Denver paper from the messenger in the express-car and started off to go on back to his room in the Forest Queen.

Down he come along the platform––he was a-looking at his Tribune, and not paying no attention––and just as he got alongside the Pullman a man stepped off it and most plumped into him; and would a-plumped if 166 he hadn’t been so beat out by the hot weather he was going slow. He was a little round friendly looking feller, with a red face and little gray side-whiskers; and he was dressed up in black same as Charley was––only he’d a shorter-tailed coat, and hadn’t a white tie on, and was wearing a shiny plug hat that looked most extra unsuitable in them parts on that sort of a day.

“I beg your pardon, sir!” says the little man, as he pulled himself up just in time to keep from bumping.

Charley bowed handsome––there was no ketching off Santa FÉ when it come to slinging good manners, his being that gentlemanly he could a-give points to a New York bar-keep––and says back: “Sir, I beg yours! Heedlessness is my besetting sin. The fault is mine!” And then he said, keeping on talking the toney way he knowed how to: “I trust, sir, that you are not incommoded by the heat. Even for New Mexico in August, this is a phenomenally hot day.”

“Incommoded is no name for it!” says the little man, taking off his shiny hat and mopping away at himself with his pocket-handkerchief. “I’ve never encountered such heat anywhere. It’s hotter than Sahara! In England we have nothing like it at all.” Then he mopped himself some more, and went ahead again––seeming glad to have somebody to let out to: “My whole life long I’ve been finding fault with our August weather in London. I’ll never find fault with it again. I’d give fifty pounds to be back there now, even in my office in the City––and I’d give a hundred willingly if I could walk out of this frying-pan into my own home in the Avenue Road! If you know London, sir, you know that St. John’s Wood is the coolest part of it, and that the coolest part of St. John’s Wood––up by the side of Primrose Hill––is the Avenue Road; and so you can understand why thinking about coming out from the Underground and walking homeward in the cool of the evening almost gives me a pain!”

Santa FÉ allowed he wasn’t acquainted with that locality; but he said he hadn’t no doubt––since you couldn’t get a worse one––it 168 was a better place in summer than Palomitas. And then he kind of chucked it in casual that as the little man didn’t seem to take much stock in Palomitas maybe he’d a-done as well if he’d stuck at home.

Charley’s talking that way brought out he wasn’t there because he wanted to be, but because he was sent: coming to look things over for the English stockholders––who was about sick, he said, of dropping assessments in the slot and nothing coming out when they pushed the button––before they chipped in the fresh stake they was asked for to help along with the building of the road. He said he about allowed, though, the call was a square one, what he’d seen being in the road’s favor and as much as was claimed for it; but when it come to the country and the people, he said, there was no denying they both was as beastly as they could be. Then he turned round sudden on Santa FÉ and says: “I infer from your dress, sir, that you are in Orders; and I therefore assume that you represent what little respectability this town has. Will you kindly tell me if it is possible in this 169 filthy place to procure a brandy-and-soda, and a bath, and any sort of decent food?”

It always sort of tickled Santa FÉ, same as I’ve said, when a tenderfoot took him for a fire-escape; and when it happened that way he give it back to ’em in right-enough parson talk. So he says to the little man, speaking benevolent: “In our poor way, sir, we can satisfy your requirements. At the Forest Queen Hotel, over there, you can procure the liquid refreshment that you name; and also food as good as our little community affords. As for your bath, we can provide it on a scale of truly American magnificence. We can offer you a tub, sir, very nearly two thousand miles long!”

“A tub two thousand miles long?” says the little man. “Oh, come now, you’re chaffing me. There can’t be a tub like that, you know. There really can’t!”

“I refer, sir,” says Santa FÉ, “to the Rio Grande.”

The little man took his time getting there, but when he did ketch up he laughed hearty. “How American that is!” says he. And 170 then he says over again: “How American that is!”––and he laughed some more. Then he said he’d start ’em to getting his grub ready while he was bathing in that two-thousand-mile bath-tub, and he’d have his brandy-and-soda right away; and he asked Charley––speaking doubtful, and looking at his white necktie––if he’d have one too?

Charley said he just would; and it was seeing how sort of surprised the little man looked, he told the boys afterwards, set him to thinking he might as well kill time that hot day trying how much stuffing that sort of a tenderfoot would hold. He said at first he only meant to play a short lone hand for the fun of the thing; and it was the way the little man swallowed whatever was give him, he said, that made the game keep on a-growing––till it ended up by roping in the whole town. So off he went, explaining fatherly how it come that preachers and brandys-and-sodas in Palomitas got along together first class.

“In this wildly lawless and sinful community, sir,” says he, “I find that my humble 171 efforts at moral improvement are best advanced by identifying my life as closely as may be with the lives of those whom I would lead to higher planes. At first, in my ignorance, I held aloof from participating in the customs––many of them, seemingly, objectionable––of my parishioners. Naturally, in turn, they held aloof from me. I made no impression upon them. The good seed that I scattered freely fell upon barren ground. Now, as the result of experience, and of much soulful thought, I am wiser. Over a friendly glass at the bar of the Forest Queen, or at other of the various bars in our little town, I can talk to a parishioner with a kindly familiarity that brings him close to me. By taking part in the games of chance which form the main amusement of my flock, I still more closely can identify their interests with my own––and even materially improve, by such winnings as come to me in our friendly encounters, our meagre parish finances. I have as yet taken no share in the gun-fights which too frequently occur in our somewhat tempestuous little community; but I am 172 seriously considering the advisability of still farther strengthening my hold upon the respect and the affection of my parishioners by now and then exchanging shots with them. I am confident that such energetic action on my part will tend still more to endear me to them––and, after all, I must not be too nicely fastidious as to means if I would compass my end of winning their trust and their esteem.”

While Santa FÉ was talking along so slick about the way he managed his parsoning, the little man’s eyes was getting bulgier and bulgier; and when it come to his taking a hand in shooting-scrapes they looked like they was going to jump out of his head. All he could say was: “Good Lord!” Then he kind of gagged, and said he’d be obliged if he could get his brandy-and-soda right off.

Charley steered him across to the Forest Queen, and when he had his drink in him, and another on top of it, he seemed to get some of his grip back. But even after his drinks he seemed like he thought he must be asleep and dreaming; and he said twice over 173 he’d never heard tell of such doings in all his born days.

Santa FÉ just give a wink across the bar to Blister Mike––who didn’t need much winking, being a wide-awake one––and then he went ahead with some more of the same kind. “No doubt, my dear sir, in the older civilization to which you are accustomed my methods would seem irregular––perhaps even reprehensible. In England, very likely, unfavorable comment would be made upon a pastor who cordially drank with members of his flock at public bars; who also––I do not hesitate, you see, to give our little games of chance their harshest name––in a friendly way gambled with them; and I can imagine that the spectacle of a parish priest engaging with his parishioners, up and down the street of a quiet village, in a fight with six-shooters and Winchesters would be very generally disapproved.”

“It is impossible, quite impossible,” says the little man, sort of gaspy, “to imagine such a horrible monstrosity!”

“Very likely for you, sir,” says Charley, 174 speaking affable, “it is. But you must remember that ours is a young and a vigorous community––too young, too vigorous, to be cramped and trammelled by obsolete conventions and narrow Old-World rules. Life with us, you see, has an uncertain suddenness––owing to our energetic habit of settling our little differences promptly, and in a decisive way. At the last meeting of our Sunshine Club, for instance––as the result of a short but heated argument––Brother Michael, here, felt called upon to shoot a fellow-member. While recognizing that the occurrence was unavoidable, we regretted it keenly––Brother Michael most of all.”

“Sure I did that,” said Blister, playing out quick to the lead Charley give him. “But your Reverence remembers he drew on me first––and if he’d been sober enough to shoot straight it’s meself, and not him, would be by now living out in the cemetery on the mesa; and another’d be serving your drinks to you across this bar. I had the rights on my side.”

“Precisely,” says Charley. “You see, sir, 175 it was a perfectly fair fight. Brother Michael and his fellow-member exchanged their shots in an honorable manner––and, while we mourn the sudden decease of our friend lost to us, our friend who survives has suffered no diminution of our affectionate regard. Had the shooting been unfair, then the case would have gone into another category––and our community promptly would have manifested the sturdy sense of justice that is inherent in it by hanging the man by whom the unfair shot had been fired. Believe me, sir”––and Santa FÉ stood up straight and stuck his chest out––“Palomitas has its own high standards of morality: and it never fails to maintain those standards in its own stern way!”

The little man didn’t say nothing back. He looked like he was sort of mazed. All he did was to ask for another brandy-and-soda; and when he’d took it he allowed he’d skip having his bath and get at his eating right away––saying he was feeling faintish, and maybe what he needed was food. Of course that was no time of day to get victuals: but 176 Santa FÉ was a good one at managing, and he fixed it up so he had some sort of a hash layout; and before he went at it he give him a wash-up in his own room.

It was while he was hashing, Charley said, the notion come to him how Palomitas might have some real sport with him––the same kind they had when Hart’s aunt come on her visit, only twisting things round so it would be the holy terror side of the town that had the show. And he said as he’d started in with the preacher racket, he thought they might keep that up too––and make such an out and out mix-up for the little man as would give cards to any tenderfoot game that ever was played. Santa FÉ always was full of his pranks: and this one looked to pan out so well, and was so easy done, that he went right across to the deepo and had a talk with Wood about how things had better be managed; and Wood, who liked fun as much as anybody, caught on quick and agreed to take a hand.

The little man seemed to get a brace when he had his grub inside of him; and over he 177 went to the deepo and give Wood the order he had from the President to see the books––and was real intelligent, Wood said, in finding out how railroading in them parts was done. But when he’d cleaned up his railroad job, and took to asking questions about the Territory, and Palomitas, and things generally––and got the sort of answers Santa FÉ had fixed should be give him, with some more throwed in––Wood said his feet showed to be that tender he allowed it would a-hurt him with thick boots on to walk on boiled beans.

Wood said he guessed he broke the lying record that afternoon; and he said he reckoned if the little man swallowed half of what was give him, and there wasn’t much of anything he gagged at, he must a-thought Palomitas––with its church twice Sundays and prayer-meetings regular three times a week, and its faro-bank with the preacher for dealer, and its Sunshine Club that was all mixed in with shooting-scrapes, and its Friendly Aid Society that attended mostly to what lynchings was needed––was something like a bit of heaven 178 that had broke out from the corral it belonged in and gone to grazing in hell’s front yard!

When he’d stuffed him as much as was needed, Wood told him––Santa FÉ having fixed it that way––there was a Mexican church about a thousand years old over in the CaÑada that was worth looking at; and he told him he’d take him across on his buck-board to see it if he cared to go. He bit at that, just as Santa FÉ counted on; and about four o’clock off they went––it was only three mile or so down to the CaÑada––in good time to get him back and give him what more was coming to him before he started off North again on the night train. Wood said the ride was real enjoyable––the little man showing up as sensible as anybody when he got to the church and struck things he knowed about; and it turned out he could talk French, and that pleased the padre––he was that French one I’ve spoke about, who was as white as they make ’em––and so things went along well.

The wind had set in to blow down the valley cool and pleasant as they was getting 179 along home; and coming down on it, when they got about half a mile from Palomitas, they begun to hear shooting––and it kept on, and more of it, the closer they come to town. Knowing what Santa FÉ had set the boys up to, Wood said he pretty near laughed out when he heard it; but he held in, he said––and told the little man, when he asked what it meant, that it didn’t mean nothing in particular: being only some sort of a shooting-scrape, like enough––the same as often happened along about that time in the afternoon.

He said the little man looked queerish, and wanted to know if the men in the town was shooting at a target; and when Wood said he guessed they was targetting at each other, and likely there’d be some occurrences, he said he looked queerisher––and said such savagery was too horrible to be true. But he wasn’t worried a bit about himself, Wood said––he was as nervy a little man, Wood said, as he’d ever got up to––and all he wanted was to have Wood whip the mules up, so he’d get there quick and see what was going on. Wood whipped up, right enough, 180 and the mules took ’em a-kiting––going at a full run the last half-mile or so, and not coming down to a walk till they’d crossed the bridge over the Rio Grande and was most to the top of the hill. At the top of the hill they stopped––and that was a good place to stop at, for the circus was a-going on right there.

Things really did look serious; and Wood said––for all he’d been told what was coming––he more’n half thought the boys had got to rumpussing in dead earnest. Three or four was setting on the ground with their sleeves and pants rolled up tying up their arms and legs with their pocket-handkerchiefs; there was a feller––Nosey Green, it turned out to be––laying on one side in a sort of mixed-up heap like as if he’d dropped sudden; right in the middle of the road Blister Mike was sprawled out, with Santa FÉ––his black clothes all over dust and his hat off––holding his head with one hand and feeling at his heart with the other; and just as the buck-board stopped, right in the thick of it, Kerosene Kate come a-tearing along, with the 181 Sage-Brush Hen close after her, and plumped down on Mike and yelled out: “Oh, my husband! My poor husband! He is foully slain!”

It was all so natural, Wood said, that seeing it sudden that way give him a first-class jolt. For a minute, he said, he couldn’t help thinking it was the real thing. As for the little man––and he likely would have took matters just the same, and no blame to him, if his feet had been as hard as anybody’s––he swallowed the show whole. “Good Heavens!” says he, getting real palish. “What a dreadful thing this is!”

Santa let go of Mike’s head and got up, brushing his pants off, and says solemn: “Our poor brother has passed from us. Palomitas has lost one of its most useful citizens––there was nobody who could mix drinks as he could––and the world has lost a noble man! Take away his stricken wife, my dear,” he says, speaking to the Sage-Brush Hen. “Take poor Sister Rebecca home with you to the parsonage––my duties lie elsewhere at present––and pour out to her 182 from your tender heart the balm of comfort that you so well know how to give.”

Then he come along to the buck-board, and says to the little man: “I greatly regret that this unfortunate incident should have occurred while you are with us. From every point of view the event is lamentable. Brother Green, known familiarly among us because of his facial peculiarity as Nosey Green––the gentleman piled up over there on the other side of the road––was as noble-hearted a man as ever lived; so was Brother Michael, whom you met in all the pride of his manly strength only this morning at the Forest Queen bar. Both were corner-stones of our Sunshine Club, and among the most faithful of my parishioners. In deep despondency we mourn their loss!”

“It is dreadful––dreadful!” says the little man. And then he wanted to know how the shooting begun.

“The dispute that has come to this doubly fatal ending,” says Santa FÉ, shaking his head sorrowful, “related to cock-tails. In what I am persuaded was a purely jesting 183 spirit, Brother Green cast aspersions upon Brother Michael’s skill as a drink-mixer. The injustice of his remarks, even in jest, aroused Brother Michael’s hot Celtic nature and led to a retort, harshly personal, that excited Brother Green’s anger––and from words they passed quickly to a settlement of the matter with their guns. However, as the fight was conducted by both of them in an honorable manner, and was creditable equally to their courage and to their proficiency in the use of arms, it is now a back number and we may discharge it from our minds. Moreover, my dear sir, our little domestic difficulties must not be suffered to interfere with the duties of hospitality. It is high time that you should have your supper; and I even venture to ask that you will hurry your meal a little––to the end that you may have opportunity, before the departure of your train this evening, to see something of the brighter side of our little town. After this sombre scene, you will find, I trust, agreeable mental refreshment in witnessing––perhaps even in participating in––our friendly card-playing, 184 and in taking part with us in our usual cheerful evening dance. By your leave, Brother Wood, I will seat myself on the rear of your buck-board and drive along with you into town.”

The little man was too jolted to say anything––and up Charley hiked on the back of the buck-board, and away they went down the road. The rest followed on after: with the Hen holding fast to Kerosene, and Kerosene yelling for all she was worth; and behind come some of the boys toting Blister’s corpse––with Blister swearing at ’em for the way they had his legs twisted, and ending by kicking loose and making a break by the shortcut back of the freight-house for home. The other corpse––seeing the way Blister was monkeyed with––stood off the ones that wanted to carry him, allowing he’d be more comfortable if he walked.

When the buck-board got down to the deepo the little man said he felt sickish––not being used to such goings-on––and didn’t care much for eating his supper; and he 185 said he thought likely he’d be better if he had a brandy-and-soda to settle his insides. So him and Santa FÉ went across to the Forest Queen to get it––and the first thing they struck was Blister, come to life again, behind the bar!

Santa FÉ hadn’t counted on that card coming out––but he shook one to meet it down his sleeve, and played it as quick as he knowed how. “Ah, Patrick,” says he, “so you have taken your poor brother’s place.” And to the little man, who was staring at Blister like a stuck pig, he says: “They were twin brothers, sir, this gentleman and the deceased––and, as you see, so alike that few of their closest friends could tell them apart.”

“It was worse than that,” says Blister, following right along with the same suit. “Only when one of us was drunk and the other sober, and that way there being a difference betwane us, could we tell our own selves apart––and indade I’m half for thinking that maybe it’s meself, and not poor Mike, that’s been killed by Nosey Green this 186 day. But whichever of us it is that’s dead, it’s a domn good job––if your Reverence will excuse me saying so––the other one of us has made of Nosey: bad luck to the heart and lights of him, that are cooking this blessed minute in the hottest corner of hell!”

“Tut! Tut! Brother Patrick,” says Santa FÉ, speaking friendly but serious. “You know how strongly I feel about profanity––even when, as in the present instance, justly aroused resentment lends to it a colorable excuse. And also, my dear brother, I beg you to temper with charity your views as to Brother Green’s present whereabouts. It is sufficient for all purposes of human justice that he has passed away. And now, if you please, you will supply our visitor, here––whose nerves not unnaturally are shaken by the tragic events of the past hour––with the brandy-and-soda that I am satisfied he really needs. In that need, my own nerves being badly disordered, I myself share; and as the agonizing loss that you have suffered has put a still more severe strain upon your nerves, 187 Brother Patrick, I beg that you will join us. The drinks are on me.”

“Sure your Reverence has a kind heart in you, and that’s the holy truth,” says Blister. “It’s to me poor dead brother’s health I’ll be drinking, and with all the good-will in the world!”

They had another after that; and then Blister said there was luck in odd numbers, and he wanted to show Palomitas knowed how to be hospitable to strangers, and they must have one on the bar. They had it all right, and by that time––having the three of ’em in him––the little man said he was feeling better; but, even with his drinks to help him, when he come to eating his supper he didn’t make out much of a meal. He seemed to be all sort of dreamy, and was like he didn’t know where he was.

Santa FÉ kept a-talking away to him cheerful while they was hashing; and when they’d finished off he told him he hoped what he’d see of the bright side of Palomitas––before his train started––would make him forget the cruelly sorrowful shadows of that melancholy 188 afternoon. He was a daisy at word-slinging, Charley was––better’n most auctioneers. Then they come along together back to the bar-room––where the cloth was off the table, and the cards and chips out, ready for business to begin. All the boys was jammed in there––Nosey Green with his face tied up like he had a toothache, so it didn’t show who he was––waiting to see what more was coming; and they was about busting with the laughs they had inside ’em, and ready to play close up to Santa FÉ’s hand.

Charley set down to deal, same as usual, and asked the little man to set down aside of him––telling him he’d likely be interested in knowing that what come to the bank that night would go to getting the melodeon the Sunday-school needed bad. And then he shoved the cards round the table, and things begun. The little man took it all dreamy––saying kind of to himself he’d never in all his born days expected to see a minister making money for Sunday-school melodeons by running a faro-bank. But he wasn’t so dreamy but he had sense enough to keep out 189 of the game. Santa FÉ kept a-asking him polite to come in; but he kept answering back polite he wouldn’t––saying he was no sort of a hand at cards.

About the size of it was, in all the matters he could see his way to that little man had as good a load of sand as anybody––and more’n most. Like enough at home he’d read a lot of them fool Wild West stories––the kind young fellers from the East, who swallow all that’s told ’em, write up in books with scare pictures––and that was why in some ways he was so easy fooled. But I guess it would a-been a mistake to pick him up for a fool all round. Anyhow, Santa FÉ got a set-back from him on his melodeon-faro racket––and set-backs didn’t often come Santa FÉ’s way.

It wasn’t a real game the little man was up against, and like enough he had the savey to ketch on to what was being give him. For the look of the thing they’d fixed to start with a baby limit, and not raise it till he got warmed up and asked to; and it was fixed only what he dropped––the rest going back 190 to the boys––should stay with the bank. But as he didn’t warm up any worth speaking of, and wasn’t giving himself no chances at all to do any dropping, Santa FÉ pretty soon found out they might as well hang up the melodeon fund and go on to the next turn.

The Sage-Brush Hen managed most of what come next, and she done it well. She’d dressed herself up in them white clothes of hers with a little blue bow tied on at the neck––looking that quiet and tidy and real lady-like you’d never a-notioned what a mixed lot she was truly––and she’d helped the other girls rig out as near the same way as they could come. Some of ’em didn’t come far; but they all done as well as they knowed how to, and so they wasn’t to be blamed. Old Tenderfoot Sal––she was the limit, Sal was––wasn’t to be managed no way; so they just kept her out of the show.

When Santa FÉ come to see faro-banking for melodeons wasn’t money-making, he passed out word to the Hen to start up her 191 part of the circus––and in the Hen come, looking real pretty in her white frock, and put her hand on his shoulder married-like and says: “Now, my dear, it isn’t fair for you gentlemen to keep us ladies waiting another minute longer. We want our share in the evening’s amusement. Do put the cards away and let us have our dance.” And then she says to the little man, nice and friendly: “My husband is so eager to get our melodeon––and we really do need it badly, of course––that I have trouble with him every night to make him stop the game and give us ladies the dance that we do so enjoy.” And then she says on to Charley again: “How has the melodeon fund come out to-night, my dear?”

“Very well indeed. Very well indeed, my angel,” Charley says back to her. “Eleven dollars and a half have been added to that sacred deposit; and the contributions have been so equally distributed that no one of us will feel the trifling loss. But in interrupting our game, my dear, you are quite right––as you always are. Our guest is not taking 192 part in it; and––as he cannot be expected to feel, as we do, a pleasurable excitement in the augmentation of our cherished little hoard––we owe it to him to pass to a form of harmless diversion in which he can have a share.” And then he says to the little man: “I am sure, sir, that Mrs. Charles will be charmed to have you for her partner in the opening dance of what we playfully term our ball.”

“The pleasure will be mine,” says the little man––he was a real friendly polite little old feller––and up he gets and bows to the Hen handsome and gives her his arm: and then in he went with her to the dance-hall, with Santa FÉ and the rest of us following on. It give us a first-class jolt to find all the girls so quiet-looking; and they being that way braced up the whole crowd to be like a dancing-party back East. To see the boys a-bowing away to their partners, while JosÉ––he was the fiddler, JosÉ was––was a tuning up, you wouldn’t a-knowed where you was!

It was a square dance to start in with: 193 with the little man and the Hen, and Charley and Kerosene Kate, a-facing each other; and Denver Jones with Carrots––that was the only name she ever had in Palomitas––and Shorty Smith and Juanita, at the sides. Them three was the girls the Hen had done best with; and she’d fixed ’em off so well they most might have passed for back-East school-ma’ams––at least, in a thickish crowd. Everybody else just stood around and looked on––and that time, with all the Forest Queen ways of managing dancing upset, it was the turn of the Palomitas folks to think they’d struck a dream! The little man, of course, didn’t know he’d struck anything but what went on always––and the way he kicked around spirited on them short little fat legs of his was just a sight to see!

Like as not he hadn’t got a good sight of Kerosene Kate while she was doing her killed husband act before supper; or, maybe, it was her being dressed up so tidy made a difference. Anyways, he didn’t at first ketch on to her being about the freshest-made widow he’d ever tumbled to in a 194 dancing-party. But he got there all right when the square dance was over, and JosÉ flourished his fiddle and sung out for the SeÑores and SeÑoritas to take partners for a valsa, and the Hen brought up Kerosene to foot it with him––telling him she was the organist who was going to play the melodeon when they got it, and he’d find her a nice partner as she was about the best dancer they had.

When he did size her up he was that took aback he couldn’t talk straight. “But––but,” says he, “isn’t this the lady whose husband was––was––” and he stuck fast.

“Whose husband met with an accident this afternoon,” says the Hen, helping him out with it. “Yes, this is our poor sister Rebecca––but the accident happened, you know, so many hours ago that the pang of it has passed; and––as Mr. Green, the gentleman who shot her husband, was shot right off himself––she feels, as we all do, that the incident is closed.”

And then Kerosene put in: “Great Scott, mister, you don’t know Palomitas! Widows 195 in these parts don’t set round moping their heads off all the rest of their lives. They wait long enough for politeness––same as I’ve done––and then they start in on a new deal.”

The little man likely was too mixed up to notice Kerosene didn’t talk pretty, like Santa FÉ and the Hen knowed how to; and he was so all-round jolted that before he knew it––Kerosene getting a-hold of his hand with one of hers, and putting the other on his shoulder––he had his arm round her waist kind of by instinct and was footing it away with her the best he knowed how. But while he was a-circling about with her he was the dreamiest looking one you ever seen. Kerosene said afterwards she heard him saying to himself over and over: “This can’t be real! This can’t be real!”

What happened along right away after was real enough for him––at least, he thought it was, and that come to the same thing. He was so dizzied up when Kerosene stopped dancing him––she was doing the most of it, she said, he keeping his little fat legs going 196 ’cause she swung him round and he had to––all he wanted was to be let to set down. So Kerosene set him––and then the next act was put through.

Bill Hart and Shorty Smith come up to Kerosene right together, and both of ’em asked her polite if she’d dance. She said polite she’d be happy to; but she said, seeing both gentlemen had spoke at once for her, they must fix it between ’em which one had the call. All the same, she put her hand on Hart’s arm, like as if he was the one she wanted––and of course that pleased Hart and made Shorty mad. Then the two of ’em begun talking to each other, Hart speaking sarcastic and Shorty real ugly, and so things went on getting hotter and hotter––till Kerosene, doing it like she meant to break up the rumpus, shoved Hart’s arm round her and started to swing away. Just as they got a-going, Shorty out with his gun and loosed off at Hart with it––and down Hart went in a heap on the floor.

The whole place, of course, right away broke into yells and cusses, and everybody come a-crowding into a heap––some of the boys picking up Hart and carrying him, kicking feeble real natural, out into the kitchen; and some more grabbing a-hold of Shorty and taking away his gun. Kerosene let off howls fit to blow the roof off––only quieting down long enough to say she’d just agreed to take Hart for her second, and it was hard luck to be made a widow of twice in one day. Then she howled more. Really, things did go with a hum!

Santa FÉ and the rest come a-trooping back from the kitchen––leaving the door just a crack open, so Hart could peep through and see the fun––and Santa FÉ jumped up on a bench and sung out “Order!” as loud as he could yell. Knowing what was expected of ’em, the boys quieted down sudden; and the Hen got a-hold of Kerosene and snuggled her up to her, and told her to weep on her fond breast––and Kerosene started in weeping on the Hen’s fond breast all right, and left off her howls. The room was that quiet you could a-heard a cat purr.

“My brethren,” says Charley, talking sad-sounding 198 and digging away at his eyes with his pocket-handkerchief, “Brother Hart has left us”––Hart being in the kitchen that was dead true––“and for the third time to-day our Sunshine Club has suffered a fatal loss. Still more lamentable is the case of our doubly stricken sister Rebecca––only just recovered, by time’s healing touch, from the despair of her tragic widowhood, and at the threshold of a new glad life of wedded happiness––who again is desolately bereaved.” (Kerosene give a dreadful groan––seeming to feel something was expected of her––and then jammed back to the Hen’s fond breast again and kept on a-weeping like a pump.) “Our hearts are with Sister Rebecca in her woe,” says Charley. “She has all our sympathy, and the full help of our sustaining love.”

“If I know anything about the sense of this meeting,” Hill chipped in, “it’s going to do a damn sight more’n sling around sympathy.” (Hill had a way of speaking careless, but he didn’t mean no harm by it.) “That shooting wasn’t a square one,” says 199 Hill; “and it’s likely there’ll be another member missing from the Sunshine Club for doing it. There’s telegraph-poles,” says Hill, “right across the way!”

“Brother Hill is right,” Santa FÉ went on, “though I am pained that his unhappy disposition to profanity remains uncurbed. The shot that has laid low Brother Hart was a foul one. Justice, my friends, exemplary justice, must be meted out to the one who laid and lowered him; and I reckon the quicker we get Brother Smith over to the deepo, and up on the usual telegraph-pole––as Brother Hill has suggested––the better it’ll be for the moral record of our town. All in favor of such action will please signify it by saying ‘Ay.’” And the whole crowd––except Shorty, who voted against it––yelled out “Ay” so loud it shook all the bottles in the bar.

“The ayes have it,” says Santa FÉ, “and we will proceed. Brother Wood, as chairman of the Friendly Aid Society, I beg that you will go on ahead to the deepo and get ready the rope that on these occasions you 200 so obligingly lend us from the Company’s stores. Brother Jones and Brother Hill, you will kindly bring along the prisoner. The remaining Friendly Aiders present will have the goodness, at the appropriate moment, to render the assistance that they usually supply.” And off Charley went, right after Wood, with the rest of us following on: Hill and Denver yanking along Shorty and flourishing their guns savage; the girls in a pack around the Hen holding on to Kerosene; and Kerosene doing her share of what was wanted by letting out yells.

The little man was left to himself a-purpose; and he was so shook up, while he was coming along with the crowd over to the deepo, he couldn’t say a word. But he managed to get his stamps going, though they didn’t work well, when we was all on the platform––waiting while Wood rigged up the rope on the telegraph-pole––and he asked Santa FÉ, speaking husky, what the boys meant to do.

“Justice!” says Charley, talking as dignified 201 as a just-swore-in sheriff. “As I explained to you this morning, sir, nobody in Palomitas ever stands in the way of a fair fight––like the one you happened to come in on at the finish a few hours ago––any more than good citizens, elsewhere and under different conditions, interfere with the processes of the courts. But when the fight is not fair, as in the present instance––the gravamen of the charge against Brother Smith being that he loosed off into Brother Hart’s back when the latter did not know it was coming and hadn’t his gun out––then the moral sense of our community crystallizes promptly into the punitive action that the case demands: as you will see for yourself, inside of the next ten minutes, when you see Brother Smith run up on that second telegraph-pole to the left and kicking his legs in the air until he kicks himself into Kingdom Come!”

“Good Heavens!” says the little man. “You’re not going to––to hang him?”

“We just rather are!” says Santa FÉ. And then he says, talking kind of cutting: “May I ask, sir, what you do in England with 202 murderers? Do you pay ’em salaries, and ask ’em out to tea-parties, and hire somebody to see they have all the drinks they want?”

The little man begun telling how English folks manage such matters, and was real excited. But nobody but the Hen paid no attention to him. The Hen––she and Kerosene was standing close aside of him––turned round to him and said pleasant she always enjoyed most the hangings they had by moonlight (the moon was at the full, and shining beautiful) because the moonlight, she said, cast over them such a glamour of romance. And her looking at moonlight hangings that way seemed to give him such a jolt he stopped talking and give a kind of a gasp. There wasn’t no more time for talking, anyway––for just then the train backed in to the platform and the conductor sung out the Friendly Aiders had got to get a move on ’em, if them going by it was to see the doings, and put Shorty through.

Being moonlight, and the shadows thick, helped considerable––keeping from showing how the boys had fixed Shorty up so his 203 hanging wouldn’t come hard: with a lariat run round under his arms, his shirt over it, and a loop just inside his collar where they could hitch the rope fast. When they did hitch to it, things looked just as natural as you please.

Shorty got right into the hanging spirit––he always was a comical little cuss, Shorty was––pleading pitiful with the boys to let up on him; and, when they wouldn’t, getting a halt on ’em––same as he’d seen done at real hangings––by beginning to send messages to all the folks he ever had. Santa FÉ let him go on till he’d got to his uncles and cousins––and then he said he guessed the rest of the family could make out to do with second-hand messages from them that had them; and as it was past train-time, and the distinguished stranger in their midst––who was going on it––would enjoy seeing the show through, the hanging had got to be shoved right along. When Charley’d give his order, Carver come up––he was the Pullman conductor, Carver was, and he had his points how to manage––and steered the little man 204 onto the back platform of the Pullman, where he could see well; and so had things all ready for the train to pull out as soon as Shorty was swung off.

Wood, who’d had experience, had the rope rigged up in good shape over the cross-bar of the telegraph-pole; and Hill and Denver fetched old Shorty along––with Shorty letting on he was scared stiff, and yowling like he’d been ashamed to if it hadn’t been a bunco game he was playing––and hitched him to it, with the boys standing close round in a clump so they hid the way it was done.

The little man was so worked up by that time––it likely being he hadn’t seen much of hangings––he was just a-hopping: with his plug hat off, and sousing the sweat off his face with his pocket-handkerchief, and singing out what was going on wasn’t any better than murder, and begging all hands not to do what he said was such a dreadful deed.

But nobody paid no attention to him (except Carver, he was a friendly feller, Carver was, kept a lookout he didn’t tumble himself off the platform) and when Denver 205 sung out things was ready, and Santa FÉ sung out back for the Friendly Aiders to haul away, the boys all grabbed onto the rope together––and up Shorty went a-kicking into the air.

Shorty really did do his act wonderful: kicking every which way at first, and then only sort of squirming, and then quieting down gradual till he just hung limp––with the kick all kicked out of him––turning round and round slow!

When he’d quieted, the train conductor swung his lantern to start her, and off she went––the little man standing there on the back platform of the Pullman, a-grabbing at the railing like he was dizzy, looking back with all his eyes. And old Shorty up on the telegraph-pole, making a black splotch twisting about in the moonlight, was the last bit of Palomitas he seen!

Next day but one Carver come down again on his regular run, and he told the boys the little man kept a-hanging onto the platform railing and a-looking back hard till the train 206 got clean round the curve. Then he give a kind of a coughing groan, Carver said, and come inside the Pullman––there wasn’t no other passengers that night in the Pullman––and plumped himself down on a seat anyways, a-looking as white as a clean paper collar; and for a while he just set there, like he had a pain.

At last he roused up and reached for his grip and got his flask out and had a good one; and when he’d had it he says to Carver, as savage as if Carver––who hadn’t had no hand in the doings––was the whole business: “Sir, this America of yours is a continent of chaos––and you Americans are no better than so many wild beasts!” Then he had another; and after that he went on, like he was talking to himself: “All I ask is to get out of this nightmare of a country in a hurry––and safe back to my own home in the Avenue Road!” And from then on, Carver said, till it was bedtime––except now and then he took another––he just set still and glared.

Carver said it wasn’t any funeral of his, 207 and so he didn’t see no need to argue with him. And he allowed, he said, maybe he had some call to feel the way he did about America, and to want to get quick out of it, after being up against Palomitas for what he guessed you might say was a full day.