The grand jury sat upon the Whittaker case and returned a true bill
against Emerson Mead, indicting him for the murder of Will Whittaker.
Mead was confined in the jail at Las Plumas to await his trial, which
would not take place until the following autumn. The finding of Will
Whittaker's body convinced many who had formerly believed in his
innocence that Mead was guilty. Everybody knew that his usual practice
in shooting was to fire three quick shots, so rapidly that the three
explosions were almost a continuous sound, pause an instant, and then,
if necessary, fire three more in the same way. The three bullets were
pretty sure to go where he meant they should, and if he wished he
could put them so close together that the ragged edges of the holes
touched one another, as did those in the back of Whittaker's corpse.
It was the number and character of those bullet holes that made many
of Mead's friends believe that he was guilty of the murder. "Nobody
but Emerson could have put those bullets in like that," they said to
themselves, although publicly the Democrats all loudly and
persistently insisted that he was innocent.
In the constant debate over the matter which followed the finding of
the body the Democrats contended that the two men who had held Thomson
Tuttle captive all night near the White Sands must have been the
murderers. And it was on them and their mysterious conduct that Judge
Harlin rested his only hope for his client. The lawyer did not believe
they had Whittaker's body in their wagon, although he intended to try
to make the jury think so. Privately he believed that Mead was guilty,
but he admitted this to no one, and in his talks with Mead he
constantly assumed that his client was innocent. He had never asked
Mead to tell him whether or not he had committed the murder.
Nick Ellhorn and Tom Tuttle lingered about Las Plumas for a short
time, sending their gold to the mint, and trying to contrive some
scheme by which Emerson Mead could be forced into liberty. Each of
them felt it a keen personal injury that their friend was in jail, and
they were ready to forego everything else if they could induce him to
break his promise and with them make a wild dash for freedom. But he
would listen to none of their plans and told them, over and over, that
he had given his word and proposed to keep it.
"Of course," he said, "when I made that promise to Wellesly I didn't
suppose they would find Will's body. But they did, and I mean to keep
my promise. I gave my word for you-all too, and I don't want you to
make any fool breaks that will cause people to think I'm trying to
skip."
Finally they gave up their plans and Tom returned to his duties with
Marshal Black at Santa Fe and Nick went out to Mead's ranch to keep
things in order there.
Ellhorn returned to Las Plumas for his own trial, the result of which
was that he was found guilty of assault and battery upon the Chinese
and fined five hundred dollars. The moment sentence was pronounced
upon him he strode to the judge's desk and laid down his check for the
amount of his fine. Then he straightened up, thrust his hands in his
pockets, and exclaimed:
"Now, I want that pig tail!"
"You are fined five dollars for contempt of court," said the judge,
frowning at the tall Texan, who looked very much in earnest.
"All right, Judge! Here you are!" said Nick cheerfully, as he put a
gold piece down beside the check. "Now, I want that Chiny pig tail!
It's mine! I've paid big for it! It's cost me five hundred and five
dollars, and no end of trouble, and it belongs to me."
"You are fined ten dollars for contempt of court," the judge said
severely, biting his lips behind his whiskers.
"Here you are, Judge!" and Nick spun a ten-dollar gold piece on the
desk. "I want that scalp as a memento of this affair, and to remind me
not to mix my drinks again. I've paid for it, a whole heap more'n it's
worth, and I demand my property!" And Nick brought his fist down on
the judge's desk with a bang that made the gold coins rattle.
"Mr. Sheriff, remove this man!" ordered the Judge, and John Daniels
stepped forward to seize his arm. Ellhorn leaped to one side,
exclaiming, "I'll not go till I get my property!" He thrust his hand
into the accustomed place for his revolver, and with a look of
surprise and chagrin on his face stood meekly before the sheriff.
"A man can't get his rights unless he has a gun, even in a court," he
growled, as he submitted to be led out. At the door he looked back and
called to the judge:
"That scalp's mine, and I mean to have what I've paid for, if I have
to sue your blamed old court till the day o' judgment!" And he went at
once and filed a suit against the district attorney for the recovery
of the queue.
Marguerite Delarue kept on with her quiet life through the summer,
caring for little Paul and attending to her father's house. She did
not see Emerson Mead again after the day when, with her little white
sunbonnet pulled over her disordered hair, she helped her baby brother
to mount his horse. Long before the summer was over she decided that
he cared nothing for her and that she must no longer feel more
interest in him than she did in any other casual acquaintance. But
sometimes she wakened suddenly, or started at her work, seeming to
feel the intent gaze of a pair of brown eyes. Then she would blush,
cry a little, and scold herself severely.
It was late in the summer when Albert Wellesly made his next visit to
Las Plumas. He had decided to buy a partly abandoned gold mine in the
Hermosa mountains, and he explained to Marguerite Delarue, as he sat
on her veranda the afternoon of his arrival, that he was making a
hurried visit to Las Plumas in order to give it a thorough
examination. And then he added in a lower tone and with a meaning look
in his eyes, that that was not the only reason for the trip. She
blushed with pleasure at this, and he felt well enough satisfied not
to go any farther just then.
He came to see her again after he returned from the mine. It was
Sunday afternoon, and they sat together on the veranda, behind the
rose and honeysuckle vines, with Marguerite's tea table between them.
He told her about his trip to the mine and what he thought of its
condition and deferentially asked her advice in some small matters
that had an ethical as well as a commercial bearing. She listened with
much pleasure and her blue eyes shone with the gratification that
filled her heart, for never before had a man, fighting his battles
with the world, turned aside to ask her whether or not he was doing
right. Then he told her how much he valued her judgment upon such
matters and how much he admired and reverenced the pure, high
standard of her life. His tones grew more lover-like as he said it
would mean far more to him than he could express if he might hope that
her sweet influence would some day come intimately into his own life.
Then he paused and looked at her lowered eyelids, bent head and
burning cheeks. But she said nothing, sitting as still as one dead,
save for her heaving breast. After a moment he went on, saying that he
cared more for her than for any other woman he had ever known, and
that if she did not love him then, he would be willing to wait many
years to win her love, and make her his wife. Still she did not speak,
and he laid one hand on hers, where it rested on the table, and
whispered softly, "Marguerite, do you love me?" With that she lifted
her head, and the troubled, appealing look in her eyes smote his heart
into a brighter flame. He pressed her hand in a closer grasp and
exclaimed, "Marguerite, dearest, say that you love me!"
The innocent, fluttering, maiden heart of her, glad and proud to feel
that she had been chosen above all others, but doubtful of itself, and
ignorant of everything else, leaped toward him then and a wistful
little smile brightened her face. She opened her lips to speak, but
suddenly she seemed to see, beside the gate, a tall and comely figure
bending toward her with eyes that burned her cheeks and cast her own
to the ground. She snatched her hand from Wellesly's grasp and buried
her face in her palms.
"I do not know," she panted. "I must think about it."
"Yes, certainly, dear--you will let me call you dear, won't you--take
time to think it over. I will wait for your answer until your heart is
quite sure. I hope it will be what I want, and don't make me wait very
long, dear. Good-bye, sweetheart."
He lifted her hand to his lips and went away. She sat quite still
beside the table, her burning face in her hands, her breast a turmoil
of blind doubts, and longings, and keen disappointments with, she knew
not what, and over all an imperious, sudden-born wish to be loved.
Wellesly walked down the street smiling to himself in serene assurance
of an easy victory. He was accustomed to having women show him much
favor, and more than one had let him know that he might marry her if
he wished. Moreover, he thought himself a very desirable match, and he
did not doubt for an instant that any woman, who liked him as well as
he was sure Marguerite did, would accept his offer.
"It was evidently her first proposal," he thought, "and she did not
know exactly what to do with it. She is as shy and as sweet as a
little wood-violet. Some girls, after my undemonstrative manner this
afternoon, would write me a sarcastic note with a 'no' in it as big as
a house. But nothing else would have done with Marguerite. She isn't
one of the sort that wants every man she knows to begin kissing her at
the first opportunity. And that is one of the reasons I mean to marry
her. The other sort are all very well, but a man doesn't want to marry
one of them. I want my wife to have such dignity and modesty that I
can feel sure no other man ever has, or ever will, kiss her but me.
And I can feel sure of that with Marguerite--just as sure as I can
that I'll have a favorable answer from her by the time I make my next
visit to Las Plumas."
Marguerite sat behind her screen of honeysuckle vines, her face in her
hands and a mob of blind, wild, incoherent desires and doubts making
tumult in her heart, until she heard her father's footsteps in the
house. Pierre Delarue had been taking his Sunday afternoon siesta, and
he came out upon the veranda in a very comfortable frame of mind. He
patted Marguerite's shoulder affectionately and asked her to make him
a cup of tea. He was very fond of his fair young daughter, who had
grown into the living likeness of the wife he had married in the days
of his exuberant youth. But he rarely withdrew his thoughts from
outside affairs long enough to be conscious of his affection, except
on Sunday afternoons, when interest and excitement on Main street were
at too low an ebb to attract his presence. On other days, she endeared
herself to him by the sympathetic attention she gave to his accounts
of what was going on down-town and to his rehearsals of the speeches
he had made. On Sundays, when he had the leisure to feel a quickened
sense of responsibility, he both pleased himself and felt that he was
discharging a duty to her by discoursing upon his observations and
experiences of the world and by propounding his theories of life and
conduct. For Pierre prided himself on his philosophy quite as much as
he did on his oratory.
Marguerite, on her part, was very fond of her father, but it was a
fondness which considered his love of speech-making and his flighty
enthusiasms with smiling tolerance. Her cooler and more critical way
of looking at things had caused her, young as she was, to distrust his
judgment in practical affairs, and about most matters she had long
since ceased asking his advice.
She sat beside him and talked with him while he drank his cup of tea.
A recently married young couple passed the house, and Marguerite made
some disapproving comment on the man's character, adding that she did
not understand how so nice a girl could have married him.
"Oh, he has a smooth and ready tongue," answered her father, "and I
dare say it was easy for him to make love. When you are older you will
know that it is the man who can talk love easily who can make the most
women think they love him." Pierre Delarue stopped to drink the last
of his tea, and Marguerite blushed consciously, remembering the scene
through which she had just passed. She rose to put his cup on the
table, and was glad that her face was turned away from him when next
he spoke:
"When a man tells a woman that he loves her," Delarue went on, "and it
rolls easily off his tongue, she should never believe a word that he
says. If a man really loves a woman, those three little words, 'I love
you,' are the hardest ones in the whole world for him to say. Most
women do not know that when they hear their first proposals, but they
ought to know it, especially in this country, where they make so much
of love. But, after all, I do not know that it makes so much
difference, because all women want to hear no end of love talked to
them, and it is only the man who does not feel it very deeply who can
talk enough about it to satisfy them. A woman is bound to be
disappointed, whichever way she marries, for she is sure to find out
after a while that the flow of words is empty, and the love without
the words never satisfies. After all, it is better for a woman to
think of other things than love when she marries. They manage these
things better in France. Don't you think so, my daughter?"
There was a deep thrill of passionate protest in her voice as she
answered, "No, father, I certainly do not."
He laughed indulgently and patted her hand as he said: "Ah, you are a
little American!" Then he added, more seriously: "I suppose you, too,
will soon be thinking of love and marriage."
She threw her arms around his neck and there was a sob in her voice as
she exclaimed: "Father, I shall never marry!"
He smoothed her brown hair and laid his hand on her shoulder saying,
"Ah, that means you will surely be married within a year!"
She shook her head. "No, I mean it, father! I shall never marry!"
"My dear, I should be sorry if you did not," he answered with dignity,
and with a strong note of disapproval in his voice. "For what is a
woman who does not marry and bear children? Nothing! She is a rose
bush that never flowers, a grape vine that never fruits. She is
useless, a weed that cumbers the earth. No, my daughter, you must
marry, or displease your father very much."
Marguerite lay awake long that night, trying to decide what she ought
to do. Her father's words gave sight to a blind, vague misgiving she
had already felt, but at the same time she could not believe that
Wellesly meant less than his words when he told her that he loved her
and wished to make her his wife.
"Why should he propose to me if he does not wish to marry me?" she
argued with herself, "and why should he want to marry me if he does
not love me? No, he surely loves me. Perhaps father is right about the
Frenchmen. He knows them, but he does not understand the Americans.
They always feel so sure about things, and they do everything as if
there was no possibility of failure. But I wish I knew if I love him!
I suppose I do, for I felt so pleased that he should wish to marry me.
But I don't have to decide at once. I'll wait till he comes to Las
Plumas again before I give him an answer."
She debated whether or not she ought to tell her father and ask his
advice, but she feared that in his mind other considerations would
outweigh the one she felt to be the chief, and she decided to say
nothing to him until she knew her own mind in the matter. "If I refuse
him," she said to herself, "there will be no reason for me to say
anything about it, and it wouldn't be fair to Mr. Wellesly for me to
tell father or any one else that he had proposed to me. Besides,
father might possibly speak of it outside, and I couldn't bear to
think that people were gossiping about it. No, I will not say
anything, unless I should decide that I want to marry him. Then I will
ask father if he thinks I'd better."
The next morning she woke with a sudden start, all her consciousness
filled with an overwhelming desire to love and be loved, to be all of
life to some one who would be more than life to her. She sat up,
panting, pressing her hand to her heart. At once her thoughts leaped
to Wellesly.
"He loves me, he has told me so, and surely this is love I feel now,
and for him. I suppose--I do--love him."
She lifted her nightgown above her bare feet and stood beside little
Paul's crib. With her disheveled hair falling in waving masses around
her face she bent over him and lightly kissed his forehead.
"My little Bye-Bye, I would not leave you to be any man's wife. But he
will not wish me to leave you, because he thinks--that it is beautiful
and noble that I--that I have cared for you--though how could I have
done anything else--and that is partly why he loves me. Surely, I love
him, and I suppose--it is best--for me to marry him. But I'll wait
till he comes again--there!"
With burning cheeks she stood erect and stamped one bare foot on the
floor. Again the memory of the brown eyes smote suddenly into her
consciousness. Her chin took a sharper angle and her red lips shut
tightly as she threw back her head and twisted her fingers together.
"I will not think of him again," she said slowly, in a low voice. "He
is in jail, to be tried for murder, and he will probably be hung--"
She hesitated, her face turned white and there was a spasmodic
throbbing in her throat, but she went resolutely on: "And he does not
care the least thing about me. He was merely fond of my little
Bye-Bye, and I am grateful to him for that. But he is nothing to me.
I'll marry Mr. Wellesly--I think--but I'll wait--" And then the
throbbing in her throat choked her voice and she threw herself upon
the bed and buried her face in the pillow and cried. Just as thousands
of young girls have cried over their fluttering, doubtful, ignorant
maiden hearts, ever since man gave up seizing the girl of his choice
and carrying her away, willy-nilly, and began proposing to her
instead.