Our situation became embarrassing.  For the first time during our ride, Esther showed the timidity of her sex.  The chosen destination of our honeymoon, nearly a hundred miles to the south, was now out of the question.  To return to Oakville, where a sister and friends of my sweetheart resided, seemed the only avenue open.  I had misgivings that it was unsafe, but Esther urged it, declaring that Mrs. Martin would offer no opposition, and even if she did, nothing now could come that would ever separate us.  We learned from the keeper that Jack Martin was due to drive the north-bound stage out of Oakville that morning, and was expected to pass this relay station about daybreak.  This was favorable, and we decided to wait and allow the stage to pass north before resuming our journey.

On the arrival of the stage, we learned that the down coach had been attacked, but the robbers, finding it guarded, had fled after an exchange of shots in the darkness.  This had a further depressing effect on my betrothed, and only my encouragement to be brave and face the dilemma confronting us kept her up.  Bred on the frontier, this little ranch girl was no weakling; but the sudden overturn of our well-laid plans had chilled my own spirits as well as hers.  Giving the up stage a good start of us, we resaddled and started for Oakville, slightly crestfallen but still confident.  In the open air Esther’s fears gradually subsided, and, invigorated by the morning and the gallop, we reached our destination after our night’s adventure with hopes buoyant and colors flying.

Mrs. Martin looked a trifle dumfounded at her early callers, but I lost no time in informing her that our mission was an elopement, and asked her approval and blessing.  Surprised as she was, she welcomed us to breakfast, inquiring of our plans and showing alarm over our experience.  Since Oakville was a county seat where a license could be secured, for fear of pursuit I urged an immediate marriage, but Mrs. Martin could see no necessity for haste.  There was, she said, no one there whom she would allow to solemnize a wedding of her sister, and, to my chagrin, Esther agreed with her.

This was just what I had dreaded; but Mrs. Martin, with apparent enthusiasm over our union, took the reins in her own hands, and decided that we should wait until Jack’s return, when we would all take the stage to Pleasanton, where an Episcopal minister lived.  My heart sank at this, for it meant a delay of two days, and I stood up and stoutly protested.  But now that the excitement of our flight had abated, my own Esther innocently sided with her sister, and I was at my wit’s end.  To all my appeals, the sisters replied with the argument that there was no hurry—­that while the hunt lasted at the Vaux ranch Tony Hunter could be depended upon to follow the hounds; Esther would never be missed until his return; her mother would suppose she was with the Vaux girls, and would be busy preparing a lecture against her return.