The boys did what they could to make the time go for him--setting around sociable in the express office telling stories about other hangings they'd happened to get up against, and trying all they knowed how to amuse him, and giving him more seegars and drinks than he really cared to have. But as he was kept hitched to both handles of the safe right enough, and handcuffed, and as the two members of the Committee watching him--while they was as pleasant with him as anybody--never had their hands far off their guns, it's likely there'd been other times when he'd enjoyed himself more. * * * * * Things was spirited at the deepo when the Denver train got in. All there was of Palomitas was on deck, and Becker'd come over from Santa Cruz de la Cañada, and old man Bouquet from Pojuaque, and Sam and Marcus Elbogen had driven across on their buck-board from San Juan--and Mexicans had come in from all around in droves. The Elbogen brothers had been asked over for the funeral 'special--because they both had good voices, and the Committee thought like enough, being Germans, they'd know some hymns. It turned out they didn't--but they blew off "The Watch on the Rhine" in good shape, when singing time come out at the cemetery; and as it was a serious-sounding tune it done just as well. Singing it made trouble, though: because Hart's nephew--who knowed German and was a pill--hadn't no more sense'n to tell old man Bouquet, coming back to town, what the words meant; and that started old man Bouquet off so--the war not being long over, and his side downed--that it took two of us, holding him by his arms and legs, to keep him from trying to fight both the Elbogens at once. Being good-natured young fellows, the Elbogens didn't take offence, but behaved like perfect gentlemen--telling old man Bouquet they didn't mean to hurt his feelings, and was sorry if they had--and it ended up well by their having drinks together at the Forest Queen. All that, though, has no real bearing on the story. It happened along later in the day. Before the train got in, to save time, a rope had been rigged for Santa Fé over the cross-bar of the usual telegraph-pole--and Cherry, who knowed how to manage better'n most, had seen to it the rope was well soaped so as to run smooth. Cherry said he'd knowed things go real annoying, sometimes, when the soap had been forgot. Santa Fé looked well. He'd had a good brush up--and he needed it, after being tied fast to the safe for three days and sleeping in a blanket on the express-office floor--and he'd put on a clean shirt, and blacked his boots, and had a shave. He always was a tidy sort of a man.