Suddenly Helena wheeled and ran over to Magdaléna.
"I've given away my last red," she said. "It's lucky I paid for that hack in advance. Let's get out. Those I haven't given any to will be down on me in a minute. Besides, it's getting late. A-ou-u!"
A policeman had tapped her roughly on the shoulder. She gazed at him in speechless terror for a half-moment, then gasped, "W-h-a-t do you want?"
"I want you two young uns for the lock-up," he said curtly. The struggling crowd had lashed his pugnacity and ensanguined his temper. As an additional indignity, the saloon had been burned, and he had not had a drink for an hour. "I'll run you in for wearing boys' clothes; have you ever heard the penalty for that, miss? And I'll run in this little greaser as a vagrant."
Helena burst into shrieks of terror, clinging to Magdaléna, who comforted her mechanically, too terrified, herself, to speak. Even in that awful moment it was her father she feared, not the law.
"Shut up!" exclaimed the officer. "None of that." He paused abruptly and regarded Helena closely. She was searching wildly in her pockets. "Oh, if you've got a fiver," he said easily, "I'll call it square."
"I haven't so much as a five-cent piece," sobbed Helena, with a fresh burst of tears. "Oh, 'Léna, what shall we do?"
"You'll come with me! that's what you'll do." He took them firmly by the hand and dragged them through the crowd, a section of which had transferred its attentions to the victims of the officer's wrath. But the three were soon hurrying up a dark cross-street toward a car; and as they went Helena recovered herself, and began to cast about among her plentiful resource. She dared not risk telling this man their names, and bid him take them home in hope of reward, for he would certainly demand that reward of their scandalised parents. No, she decided, she would confide in the dignitary in charge at the station; and as soon as he knew who she was, he would be sure to let them go at once.
They went up town on a street-car. Helena had never been in one before, and the experience interested her; but Magdaléna sat dumb and wretched. She had been a docile child, and her father's anger had never been visited upon her; but she had seen his frightful outbursts at the servants, and once he had horsewhipped a Mexican in his employ until the lad's shrieks had made Magdaléna put her fingers in her ears. He would not whip her, of course; but what would he do? And this horrid man, who was of the class of her father's coachman, had called her a "greaser." She had all the pride of her race. The insult stifled her. She felt smirched and degraded.