“I saw you talking with Colonel Whittaker,” said Mead. “Did you tell him about the wedding?”
“You bet I did! I was plum’ determined he should hear some straight talk about that, and if that little girl don’t have a fair show with the Whittaker family it won’t be my fault.”
“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 nobody 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.