It wasn't till she a'most butted
into Charley she seen him--and when she did see him she let off a yell
loud enough to give points to a locomotive! And then she sort of
sobbed out: "My husband!"--and got her arms around Santa Fe's neck and
begun to cry.

"My God! It's my wife!" said Charley. And if the members of the
Committee hadn't caught the two of 'em quick they'd likely tumbled
down.

Santa Fe was the first to get his wind back. "My poor darling!" he
said. "To think that you should have come to me at last--and in this
awful hour!"

"What does it mean, Charley? Tell me, what does it mean?" she moaned.

Santa Fe snuggled her up to him--as well as he could with his hands
handcuffed--and said back to her: "It means, Mary, that in less than
two hours' time I am to be hung! In the heat of passion I have killed
a man. It was more than half an accident, as everybody here
knows"--and he looked over her head at the boys as they all jammed in
to listen--"but that don't matter, so far as the dreadful result is
concerned. I loved the man I shot like my own brother, and shooting
him in that chance way has about broken my heart. But that don't count
either. Justice must be done, my darling. Stern justice must be done.
You have come just in time to see your husband die!" He was quiet for
a minute, with the woman all in a shake against him--and a kind of a
snuffling went through the crowd. Then he said, sort of choky: "Tell
me, Mary, how are our dear little girls?"

She was too broke up to answer him. She just kept on hugging him, and
crying as hard as she could cry.

"Gentlemen," said Santa Fe, "it is better that this painful scene
should end. Take my poor wife from me, and let me pay the just penalty
of my accidental crime. Take her away, please--and hang me as quick as
you can!"

"They sha'n't hang you, Charley! They sha'n't! They sha'n't!" she sung
out--and she jerked away from him and got in front of Cherry and
pitched down on the deepo platform on her knees. "Don't hang him,
sir!" she groaned out. "Spare him to me, and to our dear little girls
who love him with all their little hearts! Oh, sir, say that he shall
be saved!"

"Get up, ma'am, please," Cherry said, looking as worried as he could
look. "That's no sort of a way for a lady to do! Please get up right
away."

"Never! Never!" she said. "Never till you promise me that the life of
my dear husband shall be spared!"--and she grabbed Cherry round the
knees an