"There's been a killin' over Florence way," announced the Sheriff, putting on his hat and becoming an officer of the law with duty to perform.

"Who is the misfortunate?" asked Sage-brush, as they gathered about Hoover and listened intently.

Murder in Arizona was a serious matter, and punishment was meted out to the slayer or he was freed by his fellow citizens. Far from courts of justice and surrounded by men to whom death was often merely an incident in a career of crime, the settlers were forced to depend upon themselves to keep peace on the border. They acted quickly, but never hastily. Judgment followed quickly on conviction. Their views were broad, and rarely were their decisions wrong.

"'Ole Man' Terrill," replied the Sheriff. "Happened about ten this mornin'. Some man caught him alone in the railroad-station and blowed his head half-off."

"Do tell!" was Allen's exclamation.

"Yep," continued the Sheriff. "He must have pulled a gun on the fellow. He put up some sort of a fight, as the room is some mussed up."

"Robbery?" queried Polly, with wide-open eyes.

"That's what!" answered Slim, turning to her. "He had three thousan'

dollars pinned in his vest--county money for salaries. You know how he toted his wad around with him, defyin' man or the devil to get it 'way from him? Well, some one who was both man an' devil was too much for him."

"Who found him?"

"I did myself. Went over around noon after the money. Didn't stop to go back to town fer a posse. Trail was already too cold. Could tell it was a man that rode a pacin' horse."

His auditors looked at each other, striving to remember who of their acquaintance rode a pacing horse. Sage-brush Charley shook his head.

"n.o.body down this way, 'ceptin', of course, the boss, rides a pacer.

Must be one of the Lazy K outfit, I reckon."

"Most likely," said the Sheriff; "he struck out south, probably to throw me off scent. Then he fell in with two other men, and this balled me up. I lost one of the tracks, but follered the other two round Sweet.w.a.ter Mesa, till I came where they rode into the river. Of course I couldn't follow the trail any farther at that p'int, so, bein'

as I was near Uncle Jim's, I rode over fer help to look along both banks an' pick up the trail wherever it comes out of the river. Sorry I must break up yer fun, boys, but some o' yuh must come along with me.

Duty's duty. I want Sage-brush, anyhow, as I s'pose I can't ask fer Jack Payson."

Sage-brush pulled a long face. At any other time he would have jumped at the chance of running to earth the dastardly murderers of his old friend Terrill. But in the matter of this, his first experience a wedding, he had tickled his palate so long with the sweets of antic.i.p.ation that he could not bear to forgo the culminating swallow of realization.

"I don't see why I shouldn't be let off as well as Jack," he grumbled; "our cases are similar. You see it's my first weddin'," explained the foreman to the sheriff.

The other cowboys howled with delight. The humor of the situation caught their fancy, and they yelled a chorus of protestation in Hoover's ears. In this Colonel Allen joined.

"Don't spile the weddin'," he pleaded. "This event has already rounded up the Sweet.w.a.ter outfit fer yuh, an' saved yuh more time than you'll lose by waitin' till it's over. Then we'll all jine yuh."

Hoover commanded silence, and, rolling a cigarette, gravely considered the proposition. He realized that the murderers should be followed up at once, but that if he forced the cowboys by the legal power exercised to forego the pleasure they had been antic.i.p.ating so greatly, they would not be so keen in pursuit as if they had first "given the boss his send-off." The considerations being equal, or, as he put it, "hoss an' hoss," it seemed to him wise to submit to Allen's proposition, backed as it was by the justice of his plan that the occasion of the wedding had already saved valuable time in a.s.sembling the posse. He a.s.sented, therefore, but, to maintain the dignity of his office and control of the situation, with apparent reluctance.

"Well, hurry up the sacreements an' ceremonies, then, an' the minute the preacher ties the knot, every man uv yuh but Jack an' the parson an' Uncle Jim gits on his boss an' folluhs me. I'll wait out in the corral."

At this there was another storm of expostulation, led this time by Allen. Of course Hoover was to come to the wedding, and be its guest of honor. "You shall be the first to wish Jack and Echo lucky," said Allen. "That means you'll be the next one to marry."

The ruddy-faced Sheriff blushed to the roots of his auburn hair.

"Much obliged, but I ain't fixed up fer a weddin'," and he looked down at his travel-stained breeches tucked in riding-boots white with alkali-dust, and felt of his b.u.t.tonless waistcoat and gingham shirt open at the throat, with the bandanna handkerchief his neck in lieu of both collar and tie.

Polly a.s.sured him that he would do very well as he was, that for her part she "wouldn't want no better-dressed man than he to be present at her wedding, not even the feller she was goin' to be hitched up to;"

whereat Slim Hoover was greatly set at ease.

Polly was bounding up the piazza steps to tell Echo of the accession to her party, when Hoover held up his hand. A terrifying suggestion had flashed through his mind.

"Hold on a minute!" he exclaimed, and, turning to Allen, he asked anxiously: "Does this yere guest of honor haf to kiss the bride?"

The question was so foreign to the serious topic which had just been under discussion that everyone laughed in relief of the nervous tension.

Allen's fun-loving nature at once bubbled to the surface. With an air of a.s.sumed anger he said to the Sheriff: "Of course; every guest has to do it." Then, turning to the cowboys, he asked: "Is there any one as holds out strong objection to kissin' my daughter?"

"Not me," laughed Sage-brush, "I'm here to go the limit."

"I'm an experienced kisser, I am," said Parenthesis, "I don't lose no chance at practise."

"I'll take two, please," simpered Fresno.

Show Low interrupted the general sally which followed this remark, saying: "I strings my chips along with Fresno."

"Slim's afraid of females!" drawled Polly provokingly.

"Oh, thunder!" exclaimed Slim to Polly. "No, I ain't, nothin' of the sort. I'm a peaceful man, I am. I never likes to start no trouble."

"Get out, what's one kiss?" laughed Allen.

"I've seen a big jack-pot of trouble opened by chippin' in just one kiss," wisely remarked the Sheriff.

Sage-brush, at this point, announced decisively: "The bride has got to be kissed."

Slim tried to break through the group and enter the house, thinking that by making such a move he would divert their attention, and that in the excitement of the wedding he could avoid kissing the bride, an ordeal which to him was more terrible than facing the worst gun-fighter in Arizona.

"I deputize you to do the kissin' for me," he said to Parenthesis, who had laid his hand shoulder to detain him.

"No, siree," the cowboy replied. "Every man does his own kissin' in this game." Slim half-turned as if undecided. Suddenly he turned on his heel, started for the corral. "I'll wait outside," he shouted.

"No, you don't!" cried his companions. He turned to face a semicircle of drawn revolvers. He looked from one man to another, as if puzzled what move to make next. Allen was annoyed by the sheriff's actions, taking it as an insult that he would not kiss his daughter, although he had started to twit the Sheriff in the beginning.

"You ain't goin' to insult me and mine that way. No man sidesteps kissin' one of my kids," he said angrily.

Slim was plaintively apologetic: "I ain't kissed a female since I was a yearlin'."

"Time you started," snapped Polly.

"You kiss the bride, or I take it p.u.s.s.enel," said Allen, thoroughly aroused.

"Well, if you put it that way, I'll do it," gasped Slim, in desperation.

The agreement restored the boys to their good nature.

"You will have to put blinders on me, though, and back me up,"

cautioned Hoover.