In the Sleepy Hollow Country (concluded) [pp. 83-97]

]n the Sleepy Hollow Country.
"He's dead," the sheriff said; and going
back across the stream he unsaddled his
horse, drew out the saddle blankets, and
stretched them reverently over the still forms
of the two outlaws.
Newman, still sitting upon a flat rock be side the body of Lopez, and holding the bit
of paper before his eyes, was as one dazed.
Considerately enough, Perkins forbore to
question him. He knew that the courts
would justify the deed that Jim had done;
and he could afford to wait for particulars.
Newman came to himself after a little, and
handed the paper to the Sheriff. "How kin
I face her?" he moaned. "How kin I face
her?"
Perkins examined the document curiously. It was a copy of the certificate of
the marriage of Manuel Jesus Lopez and
Eduarda Ayala y Newman, dated one
month back, and signed by the parish priest
at San Buenaventura.
For an instant, even the sheriff was too
dazed to think clearly. Eduarda, the most
beautiful girl in the county, the wife of the
dead outlaw lying so cold and stiff there
now! It was preposterous —and yet, here
was the proof. All the reasoning in the
world could not get over that certificate.
The Sheriff, generous fellow, formed a
plan of his own, now. It would be time
enough to speak of it later, when Newman
had a little more recovered the use of his
faculties. Splashing up through the creek
bed now they heard Jo returning, Both
Manuel Soto and wife accompanied him, all
on. horseback; but it was too late now for
the ministrations of woman. It only remained to raise the dead men tenderly —
more tenderly, perhaps than they had ever
been touched in life —strap them in sitting
posture upon two of the horses,1 and return
slowly as they had come.
Ramon and the Sheriff led the animals —
which had objected at first, to their ghastly
'A very common practice among the stockmen of California when one of their number dies in the mountains,
far away from wagon roads
burdens, but grew quieter as they went on ward —and in this wise, down through the
narrow defile and by the broad mesas where
there were cattle, the little cavalcade
reached Soto's place.
Here leaving the bodies with Barton and
the Spaniard's family to watch beside them,
the Sheriff and Newman hastened with all
speed toward the county seat.
XIV.
Two days passed slowly at the Sleepy
Hollow farmhouse, and there came no news
from the Sheriffs party.
Lying in his darkened room, with Ed uarda watching beside him, Shelton asked
no questions. Perhaps as he lay there with
closed eyes, breathing gently, he was sleeping. Perhaps his thoughts were traveling
backward over the course of his short life —
so short, and yet so thickly strewn with
wrecks of wasted opportunities.
Bending silently to her fancy work, Eduarda sat in a low rocking chair by the
window. From the barn came the cheerful
whistle of the Gov'nor, about his chores.
"Eduarda!" The sick man spoke the
sweet name softly-the first time he had
ever spoken it aloud.
She arose quickly, crossed the little room,
and stood beside him.
"I have been thinking"-speaking with
some difficulty —" of you as I lay here.
Tom Carver will be here to-morrow —and
Edna."
"Yes; you told me," —very softly.
"You do not like your life here? You
are tired of these —these surroundings?"
"God knows how tired! "she said, speaking with a sort of suppressed vehemence.
"There is one way of lifting you from it
— if you could bring yourself to think of
it." He spoke very slowly, very painfully.
"Let me tell you a little something about
myself. Two years ago, down by the seashore, I met Edna Summers. I fancied
1887.]
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