“You know we can’t live on this way. Will you, if I go into Hangtown and bring back a mule, ride there with me the day after to-morrow and marry me? There are two or three preachers there who will do it.”
She looked at him with surprised eyes.
“I’m married already to Jake,” she said. “How kin I get married again?”
“I know it, and it’s no good trying to break that marriage. But in your eyes and mine that was none. You and your baby are mine to take care of and support and love for the rest of our lives. Though you can’t be my lawful wife, I can protect you from scandal and insult by making you what all the world will think is my lawful wife. Only you, and I and Jake and his second wife will know that there has been a previous marriage and not one of that four will ever tell.”
She put her rough hand out and felt his great fist close over it, like a symbol of the protection he was offering her.
“We can be married in Hangtown by your maiden name. If any one asks I can say I am marrying a young widow whose husband died on the Sierra. Your husband did die there when he sold you to me for a pair of horses.”
She nodded, not quite understanding his meaning.
“Kin Jake ever come and claim me?” she asked in a frightened voice.
“How could he? How could he dare tell the world how he left you and his child sick, almost dying, in the hut of an unknown miner in the foothills? This is California, where men don’t forgive that sort of thing.”
She was silent, and then said: “Yes, let’s go to Hangtown and be married.”