34

The moment her husband was gone, Jig dropped back in her chair and buried her face in her arms, weeping.  But there is a sort of sad happiness in making sacrifices for those we love, and presently Jig was laughing through her tears and trembling as she wiped the tears away.  After a time she was able to make herself ready for another appearance in the street of Sour Creek.  She practiced back and forth in her room that exaggerated swagger, jerked her sombrero rakishly over one eye, cocked up her cartridge belt at one side, and swung down the stairs.

She went straight to the jail and met the sheriff at the door, where he sat, smoking a stub of a pipe.  He gaped widely at the sight of her, smoke streaming up past his eyes.  Then he rose and shook hands violently.

“All I got to say, Jig,” he remarked, “is that the others was the ones that made the big mistake.  When I went and arrested you, I was just following in line.  But I’m sorry, and I’m mighty glad that you been found to be O.K.”

Wanly she smiled and thanked him fox his good wishes.

“I’d like to see Sinclair,” she said.

Kern’s amiability increased.

“The best thing I know about you, Jig, is that you ain’t turning Sinclair down, now that he’s in trouble.  Go right back in the jail.  Him and Arizona is chinning.  Wait a minute.  I guess I got to keep an eye on you to see you don’t pass nothing through the bars.  Keep clean back from them bars, Jig, and then you can talk all you want.  I’ll stay here where I can watch you but can’t hear.  Is that square?”

“Nothing squarer in the world,” said Jig and went in.

She left the sheriff grinning vacantly into the dark.  There was a peculiar something in Jig’s smile that softened men.

But when she stepped into the sphere of the lantern light that spread faintly through the cell, she was astonished to see Arizona and Sinclair kneeling opposite each other, shooting dice with abandon and snapping of the fingers.  They rose, laughing at the sight of her, and came to the bars.

“But you aren’t worried?” asked Jig.  “You aren’t upset by all this?”

It was Arizona who answered, a strangely changed Arizona since his entrance into the jail.

“Look here,” he said gaily, “why should we be worryin’?  Ain’t we got a good sound roof over our heads, with a set of blankets to sleep in?”

He smiled at tall Sinclair, then changed his voice.

“Things fell through,” he said softly, glancing at the far-off shadowy figure of the sheriff.  “Sorry, but we’ll work this out yet.”

“I know,” she answered.  She lowered her voice to caution.  “I’m only going to stay a moment to keep away suspicions.  Listen!  Something is going to happen tonight that will set you both free.  Don’t ask me what it is.  But, among those cottonwoods behind the blacksmith shop, I’m going to have two good horses saddled and ready for you.  One will be your roan, Arizona.  And I’ll have a good horse for you, Riley.  And when you’re free start for those horses.”