When the train pulled in, being on time for a wonder, some fellows from Chamita and the Embudo--come to see the doings--got out from the day-coach and shook hands; and the Denver undertaker got out from the express-car and helped the messenger unload the fixings he'd brought for poor old Bill. Everybody stood around quiet like, and as serious as you please. You might have thought it was a Sunday morning back in the States. Except now and then a drummer--bound for Santa Fé on Hill's coach--nobody much ever come to Palomitas on the Pullman; and so there was something of a stir-up when the Pullman conductor helped a lady out of the car--landing her close to where Charley in his clean shirt and handcuffs on was standing between two members of the Committee holding guns. She was a fine-shaped woman, but looked oldish--as well as you could see for the veil she had on--having a sad pale face a good deal wrinkled and a bunch of gray hair. She was dressed in measly old black clothes, and had an old black shawl on, and looked poor. Getting out into that crowd of men seemed to rattle her, and she didn't for a minute look at nobody. It wasn't till she a'most butted into Charley she seen him--and when she did see him she let off a yell loud enough to give points to a locomotive! And then she sort of sobbed out: "My husband!"--and got her arms around Santa Fé's neck and begun to cry. "My God! It's my wife!" said Charley. And if the members of the Committee hadn't caught the two of 'em quick they'd likely tumbled down. Santa Fé was the first to get his wind back. "My poor darling!" he said. "To think that you should have come to me at last--and in this awful hour!" "What does it mean, Charley? Tell me, what does it mean?" she moaned. Santa Fé snuggled her up to him--as well as he could with his hands handcuffed--and said back to her: "It means, Mary, that in less than two hours' time I am to be hung! In the heat of passion I have killed a man. It was more than half an accident, as everybody here knows"--and he looked over her head at the boys as they all jammed in to listen--"but that don't matter, so far as the dreadful result is concerned. I loved the man I shot like my own brother, and shooting him in that chance way has about broken my heart. But that don't count either. Justice must be done, my darling. Stern justice must be done. You have come just in time to see your husband die!" He was quiet for a minute, with the woman all in a shake against him--and a kind of a snuffling went through the crowd. Then he said, sort of choky: "Tell me, Mary, how are our dear little girls?" She was too broke up to answer him. She just kept on hugging him, and crying as hard as she could cry. "Gentlemen," said Santa Fé, "it is better that this painful scene should end. Take my poor wife from me, and let me pay the just penalty of my accidental crime. Take her away, please--and hang me as quick as you can!"