One jump ahead

Author of “Not of the Card,” etc.

That morning, bright and early, Manuel Perez was at the sheriff’s office. He was there so early, in fact, that he found the office locked and he had to wait around outside until he saw Sheriff Joe Cook and “Shorty” McKay, the deputy, coming up the walk. Then Manuel hobbled forward as quickly as he could manage with his wooden leg. There was a smile on his face and his right hand was extended as he neared the two approaching officers.

“Ah--señors!” he exclaimed cordially.

“Why, hullo thar, Perez!” said Sheriff Cook warmly, taking the Mexican’s proffered hand. “Glad to see yuh. Ah--er--when did yuh git back? Out on parole, I suppose?”

“That ees eet--parole!” announced Perez, shaking hands with Shorty. “I git back early dees mawnin’. Eet ees long time since I be here, eh, señors? Eet ees long time I be in eet--de beeg house, what yuh call heem! One, two, tree years--but now de parole he come an’ I be back! But----” The smiling Perez shrugged his shoulders. “I have no de dinero--de money!” No cow--no bla-bla sheep; de place eet fall to eet’s ruin! When I go away to de beeg house yuh say mebbe should I straighten up, yuh say, when I come out yuh really help me, sheriff--so I come!”

The sheriff’s eyes traveled swiftly over Manuel Perez. The Mexican, bad as he was, had always been pitied by the sheriff. Perhaps it was because Perez had one leg off just below the knee. He hobbled around on a “peg.” The sheriff had sympathy for any such unfortunate, even if he was a convicted rustler. Looking at him now, Sheriff Cook saw the marks of the penitentiary on his care-lined face and his lack-luster eyes; Perez had aged in the three years he had been in prison. He wore a prison shirt now, and a pair of coarse, prison trousers,

“Come in the office, Perez,” invited Sheriff Cook, “I guess me an’ Shorty mebbe kin figger some way o’ helpin’ yuh out. I guess the best thing to do is to try to git yuh a job.”

“_Si, señor!_” agreed Perez, hopefully.

“Perez,” said the sheriff, after the trio had entered the office, “yuh got off light when yuh drawed five to seven years. I know yuh’d been rustlin’ calves for a long time, although we couldn’t prove but the one case on yuh. I suppose yuh’re through with that fer all time, eh?”

“_Si!_”

“I hope so!” said the sheriff. “I’ll ring up Earl Wettengel an’ see ef he kain’t put yuh on as a sheep-herder out to his place until we mebbe kin find something better. Ef Earl ain’t got nuthin’ open I’ll call Art Wachter an’ ask him to give yuh a job, Perez. Me an’ Shorty ain’t such hard hombres, Perez, as yuh know. It was our duty to see yuh got punished for rustlin’, but now that yuh’re out on parole we’re more’n ready to help yuh beat back ef yuh’ll jus stay on th’ square.”

“I swear eet!” said Perez hastily.

“How long yuh been out, Perez? asked Shorty, as the sheriff reached for the telephone directory.

“I git out de beeg house yesterday noon,” said Perez, “I ketch de train to Salida; a friend bring me in wagon here. I come right to yuhr office, but eet ees yet locked up.”

“Central, give me Monte Vista 234 R, please,” began the sheriff, but he hung up the receiver when the office door banged open and old “Grandpa” McMeel stumbled into the office, his washed-out-blue eyes as wide as saucers. The sheriff and Shorty both sensed instantly that something was doing! Grandpa McMeel was too calm, too easy-going ordinarily, to come leaping into the office without waiting to knock, all breathless, his chin whiskers jerking convulsively as he tried to master his excitement.

“Gents!” burst out Grandpa wildly.

“Take it easy, take it easy, Grandpa!” suggested Shorty, jumping up to help the old man to the nearest chair. “Jus’ ketch yuhr breath afore yuh try any talkin’. Yuh ain’t seen a ghost, has yuh? Or the courthouse ain’t on fire, or----”

“Ghost! Fire!” cried Grandpa shrilly. “Huh! Say, thar’s devilment afoot, that’s what! Leave it to me to find out about it, too! I wasn’t a Injun scout fer nuthin’ in my young days! Thar they was, down under the bridge, workin’ with them flash-on-an’-off lights an’ shovels, an’ diggin’ fer all they was worth----”

“Who?” asked Sheriff Cook suddenly.

“Who? How the heck do I know?” thundered Grandpa peevishly. “I seen ’em, that’s all! They was a-buryin’ a body, I figgered! Or a-diggin’ one up, mebbe! I don’t know! I wasn’t so sure, either, until this mawnin’. Yuh see I had a toddy las’ night over to ‘Pap’ Stewart’s house an’---- But this mawin’ I goes down thar, under the bridge, an’ thar it is, purty as yuh please, a big hole!”

The sheriff looked at Shorty and Shorty looked at the sheriff, while old Grandpa fought for more breath. Manuel Perez, his face wearing a puzzled expression, got up and sauntered over to the window, as though withdrawing, as best he could, from a conference that might be more or less private in nature, judging from Grandpa’s preliminary revelations. Shorty glanced at Perez just as the sheriff, recovering himself, asked Grandpa a question.

“Yuh say yuh seen a big hole under the bridge?”

“Sure,” cried Grandpa breathlessly, “an’ tracks, too! They was two men down thar workin’ las’ night--about midnight--an’ I could hear the shovels a-goin’. I leaned over the bridge an’ I could see their flash-on-an’-off lights, too. They dug up a big box an’ lugged it off. They waded Coyote Creek with it, an’----”

“Two men,” repeated Sheriff Cook. “Yuh can’t describe ’em----”

“Describe ’em, heck!” said Grandpa angrily. “They was shadders, that’s all--shadders! I tell yuh it was dark as a bag o’ black cats! I went down this mawnin’ an’ saw the hole an’----”

There was a rap at the door and before the sheriff or Shorty could sing out an invitation to enter, it swung wide and in stepped Fred Speers, bubbling over with excitement. He wasted no time on preliminaries at all. He blurted his story right out!

“I seen somethin’ funny las’ night down under the bridge!” he exclaimed. “I was settin’ down on the bank o’ Coyote Creek with my gal friend when I hears two men comin’ splashin’ across the creek, sheriff! They’re usin’ spotlight! I figgers they’re robbers, mebbe, an’ me an’ my gal jus’ holds our breaths! So they don’t see us, but they goes up under the end o’ the Third Street bridge an’ digs up a box an’ then they goes back across creek----”

The sheriff pushed his chair back from the desk.

“We know all about that, Fred,” he said; “Grandpa McMeel here jus’ reported it. I reckon we’d better go take a look at that hole right now, Shorty. As fer yuh, Perez, I’ll have to postpone seein’ about a job fer yuh a few minutes while we looks inter this hole business. Yuh wait here, an’ when we gets back I’ll call some o’ them sheep ranchers an’----”

“Surely,” agreed Perez, bowing, “but mebbe I like go look at hole, too--ef sheriff no object to eet?”

“Half the town’s thar now,” put in Grandpa McMeel suddenly. “I tell yuh, sheriff, it’s devilment, that’s what!”

There was a hole under the east end of the Third Street bridge, sure enough. Quite a hole. The two mysterious men, whoever they might have been, had spaded over an area fully twelve by ten feet. They had dug extensively, it appeared, to locate the box, and had evidently taken it from a depth of some two feet or more near the far end of the excavation. The soft earth had crumbled in, however, and there was no telltale impression left to give the officers any accurate idea of the size of the box that had been unearthed. There was quite a crowd of interested citizens around and they had tramped out some of the signs about the place, no doubt. But the trail the men had taken to the river was plain enough--and quite astonishing in itself.

“Great sufferin’ jack rabbits!” exclaimed the sheriff, as he stared at it. “That was some box they got outta thar, Shorty. Lookit, they drug it clear to the river--a long, narrer box--thar’s the trail clear as daylight right to the water!”

“Yep,” said Shorty glumly, “an’ that’s all thar is, too. Thar ain’t no footprints at all, boss; that box they dragged wiped out the prints. What do yuh know about that?”

The sheriff swore softly under his breath.

“This is a hot one!” he remarked, as he stared around the crowd. “What do yuh suppose could have come off here las’ night? Speers, yuh saw the men, what did they look like, eh? Was it too dark fer yuh to get any descriptions?”

Speers, thus honored before the whole crowd, shook his head.

“I saw ’em purty plain, fer they passed close to me,” he answered. “They was both tall, easy over six feet, an’ husky! An’ once, when one feller was holdin’ a flashlight an’ the other feller was stooped down, draggin’ at the box they’d finally found. I saw that the stooped-over feller had light hair. I guess that was about all, exceptin’ it was a big, long, narrer box they got out an’ drug away, an’ it was heavy; an’ thev must o’ been big fellers because they lifted it an’ carried it as soon as they struck the creek ag’in on thar way back. I guess that’s all.”

The sheriff put his hands on his hips.

“A fine howdy-do!” he remarked savagely. “Gosh knows what them birds dug up from under this bridge! Buried treasure, likely, or mebbe a body! But more probably gold, or some other kind o’ loot--mebbe smuggled stuff from the border--an’ they didn’t leave a blamed clew either! A nice mess, folks, I’ll say! Shorty, what do yuh make o’ it all?”