Nobody spoke for a minute––but it was plain how the tide was setting––and then Santa Fé himself chipped in. “Gentlemen,” he said, “you all know I’ve faced this music from the first without any squirming, and 226 even come into Joe Cherry’s plan for making me do circus stunts at the funeral for the good of the town. I’m ready to go through the whole fool business right now, and come back here when it’s all over and be hung according to contract––”
“Save him! Save him!” the woman sung out; and she give such a jerk to Cherry’s legs it come close to spilling him.
“But I will say this much, gentlemen,” Santa Fé went on: “I am willing to ask for the sake of my dear wife and helpless innocent infants what I wouldn’t be low down enough to ask for myself––and that is that you call this game off. This dreadful experience has changed me, gentlemen. It has changed me right down to my toes. Being as close to a telegraph-pole as I am now makes a man want to turn over a new leaf and behave––as some of you like enough’ll find out for yourselves if you don’t draw cards from my awful example and brace up all you know how. Give me another show, gentlemen. That’s what I ask for––give me another show. Let me go home with my 227 angel wife to the dear old farm in Ohio, where my aged mother and my sweet babes are waiting for me. Like enough they’re standing out by the old well in the front yard looking down the road for me now!” Santa Fé gagged so he couldn’t go on for a minute. But he pulled himself together and finished with his chest out and his chin up and speaking firm. “Let me go home, I say, to the old farm and my dear ones––and take a fresh start at leading bravely the honest life of an honest man!”
Then he lowered down his chin and took his chest in and said, sort of soft and gentle: “Let go of Mr. Cherry’s legs and come and kiss me, my darling! And please wipe the tears from my eyes––with my poor shackled hands I can’t!”
The woman give Cherry’s legs one more rousing jerk, and said, sort of imploring: “Save him! Save him for his old mother’s sake, and for mine, and for the sake of our little girls!” Then she got up and wiped away at Santa Fé’s eyes with her pocket-handkerchief, and went to kissing him for 228 all she was worth––holding on to him tight around the neck with both arms.
The boys was all as uncomfortable as they could be––except Cherry seemed to feel better at getting his legs loose––and some of ’em fairly snuffled out loud. They stood around looking at each other, and nobody said a word. Then Santa Fé kind of wrenched loose from her kissing him and spoke up. “Which is it to be, gentlemen?” he said. “Is it the telegraph-pole––or is it another chance?” The woman moaned fit to break her heart.
The silence, except for her moaning, hung on for a good minute. Then Hill broke it. “Oh, damn it all!” said Hill––it was Hill’s way to talk sort of careless––“Give him another chance!”
That settled things. In another minute they had the handcuffs off of Santa Fé and all the boys was shaking hands with him. And then they was asking to be introduced to his wife––she was all broke to bits, and crying, and kept her veil down––and shaking hands with her too; and they ended off by 229 giving Charley and his wife three cheers. You never seen folks so pleased! The only one out of it was the Denver undertaker––who couldn’t be expected to feel like the rest of us; and was in a hurry, anyway, to put through his job so he could start back home on the night train.
“You come along with me in the coach, Charley,” Hill said––Hill always was a friendly sort of a fellow––“and I’ll jerk you over to Santa Fé in no time, and you can start right off East by the 6.30 train. That’ll be quicker’n going up to Pueblo, and it’ll be cheaper too. The ride across sha’n’t cost you a cent. If you and your lady come in my coach, you come free. And I say, boys,” Hill went on, “let’s open a pot for them little girls! Here’s my hat, with ten dollars in it for a warmer. I’d make it more if I could––and nobody’ll hurt my feelings by raising my call.”
All hands made a rush for Hill’s hat––and when Hill handed it to that poor woman, who had her pocket-handkerchief up to her eyes under her veil and was crying so she 230 shook all over, there was more’n two hunderd dollars in it, mostly gold. “This is for them children, ma’am, with all our compliments,” Hill said––and he and Charley helped her hold her shawl up, so it made a kind of a bag, while he turned his hat upside-down.