the fiddler, Jose was--was a tuning up, you wouldn't
a-knowed where you was!

It was a square dance to start in with: with the little man and
the Hen, and Charley and Kerosene Kate, a-facing each other; and
Denver Jones with Carrots--that was the only name she ever had in
Palomitas--and Shorty Smith and Juanita, at the sides. Them three was
the girls the Hen had done best with; and she'd fixed 'em off so well
they most might have passed for back-East school-ma'ams--at least, in
a thickish crowd. Everybody else just stood around and looked
on--and that time, with all the Forest Queen ways of managing dancing
upset, it was the turn of the Palomitas folks to think they'd struck a
dream! The little man, of course, didn't know he'd struck anything
but what went on always--and the way he kicked around spirited on
them short little fat legs of his was just a sight to see!

Like as not he hadn't got a good sight of Kerosene Kate while she was
doing her killed husband act before supper; or, maybe, it was her
being dressed up so tidy made a difference. Anyways, he didn't at
first ketch on to her being about the freshest-made widow he'd ever
tumbled to in a dancing-party. But he got there all right when the
square dance was over, and Jose flourished his fiddle and sung out for
the Senores and Senoritas to take partners for a _valsa_, and the Hen
brought up Kerosene to foot it with him--telling him she was the
organist who was going to play the melodeon when they got it, and he'd
find her a nice partner as she was about the best dancer they had.

When he did size her up he was that took aback he couldn't talk
straight. "But--but," says he, "isn't this the lady whose husband
was--was--" and he stuck fast.

"Whose husband met with an accident this afternoon," says the Hen,
helping him out with it. "Yes, this is our poor sister Rebecca--but
the accident happened, you know, so many hours ago that the pang of it
has passed; and--as Mr. Green, the gentleman who shot her husband, was
shot right off himself--she feels, as we all do, that the incident is
closed."

And then Kerosene put in: "Great Scott, mister, you don't know
Palomitas! Widows in these parts don't set round moping their
heads off all the rest of their lives. They wait long enough for
politeness--same as I've done--and then they start in on a new deal."

The little man likely was too mixed up to notice Kerosene didn't talk
pretty, like Santa Fe and the Hen knowed how