34
The moment her husband was gone, Jig dropped back in her chair and buried her face in her arms, weeping. But there is a sort of sad happiness in making sacrifices for those we love, and presently Jig was laughing through her tears and trembling as she wiped the tears away. After a time she was able to make herself ready for another appearance in the street of Sour Creek. She practiced back and forth in her room that exaggerated swagger, jerked her sombrero rakishly over one eye, cocked up her cartridge belt at one side, and swung down the stairs.
She went straight to the jail and met the sheriff at the door, where he sat, smoking a stub of a pipe. He gaped widely at the sight of her, smoke streaming up past his eyes. Then he rose and shook hands violently.
"All I got to say, Jig," he remarked, "is that the others was the ones that made the big mistake. When I went and arrested you, I was just following in line. But I'm sorry, and I'm mighty glad that you been found to be O.K."
Wanly she smiled and thanked him for his good wishes.
"I'd like to see Sinclair," she said.
Kern's amiability increased.
"The best thing I know about you, Jig, is that you ain't turning Sinclair down, now that he's in trouble. Go right back in the jail. Him and Arizona is chinning. Wait a minute. I guess I got to keep an eye on you to see you don't pass nothing through the bars. Keep clean back from them bars, Jig, and then you can talk all you want. I'll stay here where I can watch you but can't hear. Is that square?"
"Nothing squarer in the world," said Jig and went in.
She left the sheriff grinning vacantly into the dark. There was a peculiar something in Jig's smile that softened men.