With Hoops of Steel

by Florence Finch Kelly

“Here you are, Judge!” and Nick spun a ten-dollar gold piece on the desk. “I want that scalp as a memento of this affair, and to remind me not to mix my drinks again. I’ve paid for it, a whole heap more’n it’s worth, and I demand my property!” And Nick brought his fist down on the judge’s desk with a bang that made the gold coins rattle.

“Mr. Sheriff, remove this man!” ordered the Judge, and John Daniels stepped forward to seize his arm. Ellhorn leaped to one side, exclaiming, “I’ll not go till I get my property!” He thrust his hand into the accustomed place for his revolver, and with a look of surprise and chagrin on his face stood meekly before the sheriff.

“A man can’t get his rights unless he has a gun, even in a court,” he growled, as he submitted to be led out. At the door he looked back and called to the judge:

“That scalp’s mine, and I mean to have what I’ve paid for, if I have to sue your blamed old court till the day o’ judgment!” And he went at once and filed a suit against the district attorney for the recovery of the queue.

Marguerite Delarue kept on with her quiet life through the summer, caring for little Paul and attending to her father’s house. She did not see Emerson Mead again after the day when, with her little white sunbonnet pulled over her disordered hair, she helped her baby brother to mount his horse. Long before the summer was over she decided that he cared nothing for her and that she must no longer feel more interest in him than she did in any other casual acquaintance. But sometimes she wakened suddenly, or started at her work, seeming to feel the intent gaze of a pair of brown eyes. Then she would blush, cry a little, and scold herself severely.

It was late in the summer when Albert Wellesly made his next visit to Las Plumas. He had decided to buy a partly abandoned gold mine in the Hermosa mountains, and he explained to Marguerite Delarue, as he sat on her veranda the afternoon of his arrival, that he was making a hurried visit to Las Plumas in order to give it a thorough examination. And then he added in a lower tone and with a meaning look in his eyes, that that was not the only reason for the trip. She blushed with pleasure at this, and he felt well enough satisfied not to go any farther just then.

He came to see her again after he returned from the mine. It was Sunday afternoon, and they sat together on the veranda, behind the rose and honeysuckle vines, with Marguerite’s tea table between them. He told her about his trip to the mine and what he thought of its condition and deferentially asked her advice in some small matters that had an ethical as well as a commercial bearing. She listened with much pleasure and her blue eyes shone with the gratification that filled her heart, for never before had a man, fighting his battles with the world, turned aside to ask her whether or not he was doing right. Then he told her how much he valued her judgment upon such matters and how much he admired and reverenced the pure, high standard of her life. His tones grew more lover-like as he said it would mean far more to him than he could express if he might hope that her sweet influence would some day come intimately into his own life. Then he paused and looked at her lowered eyelids, bent head and burning cheeks. But she said nothing, sitting as still as one dead, save for her heaving breast. After a moment he went on, saying that he cared more for her than for any other woman he had ever known, and that if she did not love him then, he would be willing to wait many years to win her love, and make her his wife. Still she did not speak, and he laid one hand on hers, where it rested on the table, and whispered softly, “Marguerite, do you love me?” With that she lifted her head, and the troubled, appealing look in her eyes smote his heart into a brighter flame. He pressed her hand in a closer grasp and exclaimed, “Marguerite, dearest, say that you love me!”

The innocent, fluttering, maiden heart of her, glad and proud to feel that she had been chosen above all others, but doubtful of itself, and ignorant of everything else, leaped toward him then and a wistful little smile brightened her face. She opened her lips to speak, but suddenly she seemed to see, beside the gate, a tall and comely figure bending toward her with eyes that burned her cheeks and cast her own to the ground. She snatched her hand from Wellesly’s grasp and buried her face in her palms.

“I do not know,” she panted. “I must think about it.”

“Yes, certainly, dear—you will let me call you dear, won’t you—take time to think it over. I will wait for your answer until your heart is quite sure. I hope it will be what I want, and don’t make me wait very long, dear. Good-bye, sweetheart.”