The Committee didn't much believe Santa Fé could deliver the goods; but they seen it would be a way out for 'em if he did--and so they agreed him and the Hen should have their talk. To make it private, he was took out and hitched fast to a freight-car laying on the siding back of the deepo--the Committee standing around in easy shooting distance, but far enough off not to hear nothing, with their Winchesters handy in case the Hen took it into her head to cut the rope and give him a chance to get away. She didn't--and she and Santa Fé talked to each other mighty serious for a while; and then they begun to snicker a little; and they ended up in a rousing laugh. Charley sung out they'd finished, and the Committee closed in and unhitched him, and took him back to the express office and hitched him to the safe again--where he was to stay till hanging-time, with members of the Committee taking turns keeping him quiet with their guns. He said he was much obliged to 'em, and the Hen had agreed to quit--and everybody was pleased all round. "I don't like not being here when Charley gets his medicine," the Hen said, "him and me being such good friends; but he says it would only worry him having me in the audience, and so I've promised him I'll light out"--and she kept her word, and got away for Denver by that night's train. Her going took a real load off the Committee's mind. Some of the other fired ones went off on the same train. The rest took Hill's coach across to Santa Fé--and made no trouble, Hill said, except they held the coach for two hours at Pojuaque while all hands got drunk at old man Bouquet's. Hill said all the rest of the way they was yelling, and firing off their guns, and raising hell generally--that was the way Hill put it--but they didn't do no real harm. It was Joe Cherry's notion that Santa Fé should be took along to Hart's funeral, and not hung till everybody got back to town again. Joe was a serious-minded man, and he said the moral effect of running things that way would pan out a lot richer than if they just had a plain hanging before the funeral got under way.