“You was! Well, then, after all, who done this thing—who’s really to blame?”
“I am—you bet,” came the deep-voiced answer. “I don’t hold it against you a bit, Aunt Huldah; but you’re working on the wrong trail. You think you’ve got a great big job ahead of you trying to make me see this thing right. But I’ll remind you that it’s eight hours from El Paso here—eight night hours—and your telegram was pretty complete. You left the man out; and so will I—until I meet him.” The firm jaw squared itself heavily; and Huldah sighed as she realized that the law of blood for honor must be met.
The man had carried one arm almost as though it were injured; and she now glanced down at it as he moved it and fumbled in the folds of his big overcoat. His voice softened beautifully. “I’ve got something here,” he said, “that ought to show you that I know and understand, and am going to behave myself.”
He opened his great cloak and showed, lying upon his breast asleep, a baby of about two years old, who stirred, put up a wandering little hand and murmured: “Daddy,” as he settled himself for a longer nap.
“Bless his heart!” murmured Huldah, in the richest tones of her strong, heartsome voice. She wiped the tears from her eyes on a corner of the check apron. “I guess you’ll do, Billy. You seem to have the makin’s of a tol’able decent feller in you. You’ve got the only medicine right there that your poor little, half crazy wife needs.” And she pushed him toward the door of the deserted dining room.
There was a long, agonized cry: “O—o—oh, Billy!” Then the big voice talked brokenly and gently for a time, choking sobs interrupting it; and Huldah could hear, at first, the thin, shrill terror of the woman’s tones, very sharp and pleading; finally an eloquent silence.
She glanced in to see Billy Gaines sitting with what she called “both of his children—for the little woman’s ’most as much of a baby as her boy”—asleep; the mother with her head upon his shoulder, while the child lay in the laps of both of them.
“Lord, but that’s a sight for sore eyes!” she ruminated, as she lifted the coffee boiler from the stove and sent Manuelita to lie down and get a rest.
“But there’s the colonel,” she pursued. “There’s goin’ to be awful times when him and Billy Gaines meets.” Then she smiled at herself and went on: “Jest listen to a old woman like me tryin’ to tell how it ort to come out. We’re all God’s children. I reckon the colonel’s His child”—she seemed to have a little doubt upon this point—“an’ I reckon God’ll take care of him.”