Honoré Willsie

“ What are you going to try to do to my old friend Red Wolf?”
“I’m going to shoot him.”
“You haven’t the nerve. Come, Pink, talk straight man’s talk to me, will you?”
Pink sat forward in his chair. “What am I going to do to that blank, blank Sioux? Well, sir, I’m going to have the law on him and I’ll have him sent over to Rawlins for the rest of his life. I got money. Plenty of it. And I’ll use it to get that Indian with.”
“No, Pink, I don’t think you will,” said Hugh “You got what you richly deserve, and you are going to take your punishment like a man. ”

“ He nipped out a piece of scalp on the crown of Pink’s old dome about as big as a quarter. Must be awful sore, and if he don’t get no balder it won’t show. Unless Pink gets proud of it and makes an exhibit of it. Of course, there’s mighty few living men has been scalped by a Sioux. Hughie, Red Wolf was a raving maniac! He had me scared. Why, I wouldn’t have dared to interfere if he’d tried to cut off Pink’s nose.”
The two men stared at each other. Hugh’s lips twitched, and in spite of his realization of the seriousness of the situation for his old friend Red Wolf, his eyes twinkled. ”

“ Ellis, does that mean going back to Jessie?”
“Going back! Hughie, no! Going forward. Jessie has suffered too. And she is rather a tremendous person. Why, Hugh, just consider the attitude that she took toward Miriam Page!”
“No one appreciates it more than I do now,” Hugh sighed as he spoke. “But—” he hesitated, then exclaimed vehemently, “Good God! Jessie is a great lover! She deserves to be married to a great lover. ”

“ I’ve been self-centered and socially blind. But since Bookie’s death——” He paused. This was hard to do over again.
Jessie suddenly interrupted. “Mrs. Ellis, you don’t want him to explain, do you? That kind of an explanation hurts.”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” said Mrs. Ellis, pitifully. “I just want to know what happened. It’s life or death to me, Jessie.”
“Well,” Hugh went on abruptly, “I made up my mind that the Children’s Code was the biggest thing in Wyoming. So yesterday I had a conference with Charley Whitson and his gang. ”

“ Whitson looked at Hugh sharply. Some one in the group gave a guffaw which was quickly suppressed. Whitson had his followers well in hand. There was no further interruption while the old warrior and the new warrior measured each other’s strength. Hugh had learned in the political fight in the year just ended how greatly, both financially and as a matter of his prestige as party leader, old Charley wanted the dam built at Fort Sioux. He had little doubt as to the outcome of the session. So he waited patiently.
“Can you deliver?” demanded the old man. ”

“ I don’t suppose you ever did examine him, did you?”
“I got a clear idea of him in the fight on the bridge,” said Hugh. “A superb specimen.”
“Superb! I’ll say so! Why, Hughie, that horse is Morgan with a strain of Arab. I’ll bet you a hundred bits. And it’s not only that. He’s—well,” with a grin, “it’s like what they say about you. ”

“ Fred suddenly burst into a loud guffaw.
“My Lord, ain’t it funny, Hughie? Listen I know you are the Governor and you’d oughtn’t to laugh when your father-in-law has been scalped, but go ahead. I’ll never tell on you. Why, Hughie, all the way in, and it was the worst horseback ride I ever took, I laughed. So help me the twelve apostles, I did! ”

“ Ellis were alone for a short time. The mother of the Code was in a beatific frame of mind and had turned off enough work during the day to have exhausted half a dozen women. It was, however, a keen and alert eye that she turned on Hugh.
“Jessie told me today that she was not going to Cheyenne with you, but that she was taking up a permanent residence at the ranch. Of course, a man shouldn’t ask his wife to give up her profession for any light reason. ”

“ He paused for a moment after this, hoping that the set faces before him would soften, ever so little. But they did not. He hesitated, then he told the story of Dora. He told it very simply.
“I don’t know how it may affect you folks,” he said in closing. ”