Pecos looked him over carefully, grunted, and started for the door.
It would be difficult to tell just how it happened so, but as Pecos Dalhart, with a firm resolve in his heart, dashed down the steps once more, his eye caught a darker shadow in the dusky corner of the jail and he stopped dead in his tracks. Then as his vision became adjusted to the twilight he walked slowly over toward the corner, where a woman's figure was crouched against the wall. It was Marcelina, worn, draggled, and tear-stained, and as she gazed up at him from beneath her tangled hair his heart stopped in its beat.
"Ah, Paycos," she murmured brokenly, "where can I go? The seesters lock me up in hi-igh room, for run away to see you. Two day I cry todo-tiempo because you no have ears—then I jump out of window to breeng them. Now I can not go home. An', Paycos," she rose up suddenly and moved toward him, "I am 'fraid! I am 'fraid Ol' Creet will catch me!"
"Crit nothin'!" said Pecos scornfully. "Come on over here—what's the matter with you?" He gathered her into his arms and held her close a minute.
"You ain't scairt now, are you?" he inquired tenderly.
"A-ah, no!" sighed Marcelina, nestling against his breast.
"Well, gimme that kiss, then," said Pecos.
There were no wedding bells at Pecos Dalhart's marriage—that takes too much time—but the county clerk gave him a license right away, Boone Morgan went along for a witness, and the J. P. did the rest. It was the same J. P. who had held Pecos for cattle-rustling, but what of that? Upon such an occasion the past is forgotten and we care little what hand it is that confers our greatest happiness. Pecos pressed a ten-dollar bill into the guilt-stained palm of the magistrate and then, while his roll was out, he peeled off another bill and handed it to Boone Morgan.
"Give that to Angy when he comes to," he said, "and tell 'im to hunt me up. Don't know where we'll live yet, but it wouldn't be like home without old Babe—would it, Marcelina?"