Like as not he hadn't got a good sight of Kerosene Kate while she was doing her killed husband act before supper; or, maybe, it was her being dressed up so tidy made a difference. Anyways, he didn't at first ketch on to her being about the freshest-made widow he'd ever tumbled to in a dancing-party. But he got there all right when the square dance was over, and José flourished his fiddle and sung out for the Señores and Señoritas to take partners for a _valsa_, and the Hen brought up Kerosene to foot it with him--telling him she was the organist who was going to play the melodeon when they got it, and he'd find her a nice partner as she was about the best dancer they had. When he did size her up he was that took aback he couldn't talk straight. "But--but," says he, "isn't this the lady whose husband was--was--" and he stuck fast. "Whose husband met with an accident this afternoon," says the Hen, helping him out with it. "Yes, this is our poor sister Rebecca--but the accident happened, you know, so many hours ago that the pang of it has passed; and--as Mr. Green, the gentleman who shot her husband, was shot right off himself--she feels, as we all do, that the incident is closed." And then Kerosene put in: "Great Scott, mister, you don't know Palomitas! Widows in these parts don't set round moping their heads off all the rest of their lives. They wait long enough for politeness--same as I've done--and then they start in on a new deal." The little man likely was too mixed up to notice Kerosene didn't talk pretty, like Santa Fé and the Hen knowed how to; and he was so all-round jolted that before he knew it--Kerosene getting a-hold of his hand with one of hers, and putting the other on his shoulder--he had his arm round her waist kind of by instinct and was footing it away with her the best he knowed how. But while he was a-circling about with her he was the dreamiest looking one you ever seen. Kerosene said afterwards she heard him saying to himself over and over: "This can't be real! This can't be real!" What happened along right away after was real enough for him--at least, he thought it was, and that come to the same thing. He was so dizzied up when Kerosene stopped dancing him--she was doing the most of it, she said, he keeping his little fat legs going 'cause she swung him round and he had to--all he wanted was to be let to set down. So Kerosene set him--and then the next act was put through.