With Hoops of Steel

by Florence Finch Kelly

“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 scrape 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?’ ‘Hell!’ 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 nobody’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 glass 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 hell’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.”