The Sheriff's Son (Musaicum Western Mysteries). William MacLeod Raine

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      A bow-legged little man with the spurs still jingling on his heels sauntered down one side of the old plaza. He passed a train of fagot-laden burros in charge of two Mexican boys from Tesuque, the sides and back of each diminished mule so packed with firewood that it was a comical caricature of a beruffed Elizabethan dame. Into the plaza narrow, twisted streets of adobe rambled carelessly. One of these led to the San Miguel Mission, said to be the oldest church in the United States.

      An entire side of the square was occupied by a long, one-story adobe structure. This was the Governor's Palace. For three hundred years it had been the seat of turbulent and tragic history. Its solid walls had withstood many a siege and had stifled the cries of dozens of tortured prisoners. The mail-clad Spanish explorers Penelosa and De Salivar had from here set out across the desert on their search for gold and glory. In one of its rooms the last Mexican governor had dictated his defiance to General Kearny just before the Stars and Stripes fluttered from its flagpole. The Spaniard, the Indian, the Mexican, and the American in turn had written here in action the romance of the Southwest.

      The little man was of the outdoors. His soft gray creased hat, the sun-tan on his face and neck, the direct steadiness of the blue eyes with the fine lines at the corners, were evidence enough even if he had not carried in the wrinkles of his corduroy suit about seven pounds of white powdered New Mexico.

      He strolled down the sidewalk in front of the Palace, the while he chewed tobacco absent-mindedly. There was something very much on his mind, so that it was by chance alone that his eye lit on a new tin sign tacked to the wall. He squinted at it incredulously. His mind digested the information it contained while his jaws worked steadily.

      The sign read:—

      DESPACHO

       DE

       ROYAL BEAUDRY, LICENDIADO.

      For those who preferred another language, a second announcement appeared below the first:—

      ROYAL BEAUDRY.

       ATTORNEY AT LAW.

      "Sure, and it must be the boy himself," said the little man aloud.

      He opened the door and walked in.

      A young man sat reading with his heels crossed on the top of a desk. A large calf-bound volume was open before him, but the book in the hands of the youth looked less formidable. It bore the title, "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." The budding lawyer flashed a startled glance at his caller and slid Dr. Watson's hero into an open drawer.

      The visitor grinned and remarked with a just perceptible Irish accent: "'Tis a good book. I've read it myself."

      The embryo Blackstone blushed. "Say, are you a client?" he asked.

      "No-o."

      "Gee! I was afraid you were my first. I like your looks. I'd hate for you to have the bad luck to get me for your lawyer." He laughed, boyishly. There was a very engaging quality about his candor.

      The Irishman shot an abrupt question at him. "Are you John Beaudry's son—him that was fighting sheriff of Washington County twenty years ago?"

      A hint of apprehension flickered into the eyes of the young man. "Yes," he said.

      "Your father was a gr-reat man, the gamest officer that ever the Big Creek country saw. Me name is Patrick Ryan."

      "Glad to meet any friend of my father, Mr. Ryan." Roy Beaudry offered his hand. His fine eyes glowed.

      "Wait," warned the little cowpuncher grimly. "I'm no liar, whativer else I've been. Mebbe you'll be glad you've met me—an' mebbe you won't. First off, I was no friend of your father. I trailed with the Rutherford outfit them days. It's all long past and I'll tell youse straight that he just missed me in the round-up that sent two of our bunch to the pen."

      In the heart of young Beaudry a dull premonition of evil stirred. His hand fell limply. Why had this man come out of the dead past to seek him? His panic-stricken eyes clung as though fascinated to those of Ryan.

      "Do you mean … that you were a rustler?"

      Ryan looked full at him. "You've said it. I was a wild young colt thim days, full of the divil and all. But remimber this. I held no grudge at Jack Beaudry. That's what he was elected for—to put me and my sort out of business. Why should I hate him because he was man enough to do it?"

      "That's not what some of your friends thought."

      "You're right, worse luck. I was out on the range when it happened. I'll say this for Hal Rutherford. He was full of bad whiskey when your father was murdered.… But that ended it for me. I broke with the Huerfano gang outfit and I've run straight iver since."

      "Why have you come to me? What do you want?" asked the young lawyer, his throat dry.

      "I need your help."

      "What for? Why should I give it? I don't know you."

      "It's not for mysilf that I want it. There's a friend of your father in trouble. When I saw the sign with your name on it I came in to tell you."

      "What sort of trouble?"

      "That's a long story. Did you iver hear of Dave Dingwell?"

      "Yes. I've never met him, but he put me through law school."

      "How come that?"

      "I was living in Denver with my aunt. A letter came from Mr. Dingwell offering to pay the expenses of my education. He said he owed that much to my father."

      "Well, then, Dave Dingwell has disappeared off the earth."

      "What do you mean—disappeared?" asked Roy.

      "He walked out of the Legal Tender Saloon one night and no friend of his has seen him since. That was last Tuesday."

      "Is that all? He may have gone hunting—or to Denver—or Los Angeles."

      "No, he didn't do any one of the three. He was either murdered or else hid out in the hills by them that had a reason for it."

      "Do you suspect some one?"

      "I do," answered Ryan promptly. "If he was killed, two tinhorn gamblers did it. If he's under guard in the hills, the Rutherford gang have got him."

      "The Rutherfords, the same ones that—?"

      "The ver-ry same—Hal and Buck and a brood of young hellions they have raised."

      "But why should they kidnap Mr. Dingwell? If they had anything against him, why wouldn't they kill him?"

      "If the Rutherfords have got him it is because he knows something they want to know. Listen, and I'll tell you what I think."

      The Irishman drew up a chair and told Beaudry the story of that night in the Legal Tender as far as he could piece it together. He had talked with one of the poker-players, the man that owned the curio store, and from him had gathered all he could remember of the talk between Dingwell and Rutherford.

      "Get these points, lad," Ryan went on. "Dave comes to town from a long day's ride. He tells Rutherford that he has been prospecting and has found gold in Lonesome Park. Nothing to that. Dave is a cattleman, not a prospector. Rutherford knows that as well as I do. But he falls right in with Dingwell's story. He offers to go partners with Dave on his gold mine—keeps talking about it—insists on going in with him."

      "I don't see anything in that," said Roy.

      "You will presently. Keep it in mind that there wasn't any gold mine and couldn't have been. That talk was a blind to cover something else. Good enough. Now chew on this awhile. Dave sent a Mexican to bring the sheriff, but Sweeney didn't come. He explained that he wanted to go partners with Sweeney about this gold-mine proposition. If he was talking about a real gold mine, that is teetotally unreasonable. Nobody would pick Sweeney for a partner. He's a fathead and Dave worked against him before election. But Sweeney is sheriff of Washington County. Get that?"

      "I suppose you mean