One jump ahead
Como stage gold bullion that was taken twelve years ago. I’ll have to
look up them old jobs--an’ speakin’ o’ jobs, I’ll call up about yuhrs
right now, son!”
The sheriff was successful. On the third call Jack Quinn, a sheep
rancher on Larimer Creek, agreed to take on Perez, the ex-convict,
provided the sheriff thought he would go straight. The sheriff said he
did think so, and the deal was made, after which the sheriff lectured
Perez again, got that honest fellow’s sworn promise to be good, and
started him on his way with a loan of two dollars for grub en route.
Perez was bubbling over with gratitude.
“_Gracias_, sheriff!” he exclaimed. “I go Señor Quinn’s at once. Mebbe
some day Manuel Perez able to pay sheriff back for kindness. Watch an’
see! _Adios_, señor!”
When Shorty reported, some hours later, that he had been unable to find
a single clew in the vicinity of the Third Street bridge, the sheriff
was not at all surprised. He had not expected Shorty to find any. He
said so. He also pointed out to his disappointed deputy that he himself
had searched the scene rather thoroughly while making his first
investigation of the place and had not found anything. It looked like a
hopeless proposition.
“Not a danged clew,” said the sheriff. “But I got my mind made up as to
what it was, Shorty. It wasn’t nobody business. It was loot buried thar
from the Alamosa bank robbery eight years ago. They never caught the
crooks, an’ never found trace o’ the dough. It was that or else the loot
from the Como stage robbery twelve years ago, or from some other job. We
ain’t got a chance in ten million o’ landin’ them guys, despite the
description Speers got. We kin check on the descriptions we got at the
time o’ them Alamosa an’ Como stage robbers an’ see ef they coincides
with Speer’s descriptions o’ the men last night, but outside o’
that----”
“I’ll check on ’em,” said Shorty, moving toward the door.
“Go ahead,” said the sheriff wearily, “an’ meanwhile I’ll stay here an’
do a little heavy thinkin’, Shorty. We kain’t afford to overlook no
bets, ef thar are any bets. Yuh remember what Fred Speers said--big
giants o’ fellers an’ one with light hair. It’s a purty meager
description, but it’s all we got, Shorty!”
Sheriff Cook, however, had little time to do much heavy thinking, as he
had put it. Shorty had not been gone more than thirty minutes when in
came “Doc” Healey, and Eddie Owens, and Bert Clark, the county
commissioners, and they were considerably excited. They got down to
brass tacks immediately.
“Sheriff,” said Owens, “yuh ain’t forgot, I trusts, that this is the
year o’ the spring elections in this county. Yuh’re up fer reelection
ag’in, I presume, an’ so are we county commissioners. Yuh remembers
that?”
“O’ course!”
“Waal, therefore, me an’ Doc Healey an’ Bert Clark figgered we’d better
drap in on yuh an’ see what yuh think about this buried-box business.
Everybody’s talkin’----”
“Sure they are!”
“It’s a sensation; it’s either good business or bad business fer all o’
us,” went on Owens sadly. “Ef yuh clears up the case, it’s a big help
come election time; but ef yuh don’t an’ the other side makes political
capital o’ yuhr failure, we’re all liable to sink together.”
The sheriff frowned.
“Yuh ain’t tellin’ me no news,” he snapped; “it’s jus’ one danged thing
after another in this office. We no sooner gits one case cleared up than
here comes another; but this one, gents, this one ain’t no cinch. We got
no clews.”
Commissioner Bert Clark spoke up quickly.
“Waal, I’ll tell you one thing, yuh won’t get no clew settin’ thar in
yuhr chair!”
After that remark the atmosphere became rather strained. The sheriff
ignored Clark’s question as one far beneath his notice. The other two
commissioners, not being as frank as Clark, said nothing more on the
subject. They spoke on the spring wheat prospects, the weather, the new
railroad that was coming in to Alamosa. They left, with awkward
farewells, shortly after leaving a worried sheriff behind them. He
growled as the door closed on them.
“I wouldn’t give ’em the satisfaction o’ arguin’ with ’em about whether
I kin git clews settin’ here in my chair or not,” he grunted. “I
wouldn’t dignify such a impudent question with an answer. Still, I
reckon, mebbe I’d best.” He got up and slapped on his big black hat.
“I’ll go down an’ look that place over ag’in!”
And he did. The crowd was gone now. Only a few boys hung around,
thrilled with the very atmosphere of the place. The sheriff poked here
and there. He followed the strange trail of the dragged box to the creek
bank. He reassured himself that the trail did actually vanish in the
creek bed. The bed was sandy--shifting sand that would cover any trail
almost instantly. And there was nothing about the hole now but a million
footprints. The sheriff shook his head mournfully.
“No use,” he muttered, “no use!”
He stared about, trying to think if he could be overlooking anything. It
did not seem so. He glanced this way and that and a thought struck him.
He wondered if Shorty had combed the dead weeds and the brush to both
sides of the bridge end. It was hardly likely that it was worth while,
still----
The sheriff went at the thing methodically enough. He strode back and
forth, up and down, this way and that, covering all the weeded area on
the south of the bridge without discovering anything other than old tin
cans, pieces of wood, scraps of iron, and the other débris that one
might expect to find along a creek bank. He finally crossed under the
bridge to the north side and began his investigations there. He had not
been at work ten minutes on that side when he stopped in his tracks with
a surprised snort.
“By golly!” he exclaimed, and stooping over he picked up a rusty old
black wallet. There was a rubber band around it. He snapped the band off
and opened the wallet. Empty! Visions of greenbacks, calling cards, the
owner’s name and address, perhaps--all faded away. Empty! But no, it
wasn’t empty, after all! There was a newspaper clipping in one pocket of
the old wallet, a clipping slightly yellowed with age. The sheriff took
it out carefully, inspected it, held it closer to read:
FIND NO TRACE OF BANK ROBBERS
ALAMOSA BANDITS FADE INTO THIN AIR
_Clarion_ goes to press this Thursday no trace has been
found of the three gunmen who entered the Alamosa bank last
week and got away with eight thousand dollars in cash and
five thousand six hundred dollars in negotiable securities.
They have apparently disappeared into thin air. Sheriff
Ralph Baird of Alamosa has worked tirelessly in an effort to
trace the men, but without avail. The reward of one thousand
dollars offered by the Colorado State-Bankers’ Association
has so far borne no fruit. It is hoped, however, that----
Sheriff Cook read no further. He put the clipping back in the wallet. He
placed the wallet in his pocket.
“Great sufferin’ jack rabbits,” he exclaimed hopelessly, as his face
grew longer, “jus’ as I thought! It was th’ Alamosa loot that was buried
here. What them crooks got away with las’ night! Eight years! Eight
years that eight thousand dollars plus that five thousand six hundred in
securities has been buried under this bridge here in Monte Vista, right
under my nose!”
The sheriff stalked on, like a man in a trance.
“Las’ night they come back an’ git it, provin’ that I am asleep on the
job! They was in town las’ night an’ got away clean! Further, that loot
has been there eight years, an’ now it’s gone, an’, also, them robbers
must have been here a little after that Alamosa job, eight years ago, to
bury the stuff in the fust place! Gee whiz, what a nice mess now!”
The sheriff headed for his office with rapid strides.
“What the heck am I goin’ to do?” he asked himself, as he strode along.
“It’s a cinch thar’s no ketchin’ them Alamosa robbers now ef they
couldn’t be ketched eight years ago when the trail was hot! Findin’ that
old wallet jus’ proves what I feared, an’ that’s all. It don’t help none
otherwise. It jus’ makes the case more hopeless than ever! I kain’t see
any use----”
The sheriff swallowed hard.
“No use in announcin’ anything about the findin’ o’ the wallet,” he
decided disgustedly. “It only makes matters worse than ever. It proves I
was asleep eight years ago to let that stuff be buried here then, an’
that I’ve been asleep every day since while it’s been here, as waal as
las’ night when they come an’ got it. I better keep that wallet business
under my hat!”
But he did not. When he got back to the office and found Shorty full of
hope that the mysterious box case might be solved, he could not keep his
secret. He cautioned Shorty first to keep what he was about to say in
strictest confidence forever, and then he blurted out the sad truth:
“Shorty, we ain’t ever goin’ to ketch them box fellers. They was the
Alamosa robbers, sure enough, look it here what I found in the weeds
down near the Third Street bridge!”
The sheriff produced the wallet. Shorty read the clipping eagerly. When
he had read it through and examined it closely he looked up at the
woebegone sheriff.
“I still say,” said Shorty, “that we got a chance!”
The next morning the sheriff, having spent a sleepless night, came down
to the office wan and haggard. He had no faith in Shorty’s optimistic
predictions of the evening before. Since finding the wallet with the
telltale newspaper clipping in it. the sheriff had given up the box case
as a matter that was not to be solved. It was hopeless, he had decided.
There was nothing left to do now but to face the music, and the
anticipated opportunity to listen to some sad music was not long denied
him.
The commissioners arrived shortly after nine o’clock.
“Waal,” asked Commissioner Eddie Owens mournfully, “what luck, ef any,
has yuh had in the box case, sheriff? We are naturally anxious to know
ef yuh got any clews.”
The sheriff answered the question carefully. “No luck whatever,” said
he.
“Huh,” said Commissioner Bert Clark, “that’s bad, sheriff, mighty bad.
The public clamor is increasin’. The rumor is spreadin’ everywhar that
mebbe we ain’t goin’ to ever solve the case.”
The sheriff took his pride in his hands--what he had left of it. He
tried to smile at the commissioners and failed.
“That rumor, gents,” he said slowly, “is--is jus’ about correct. I
figger it’s--it’s right. We ain’t goin’ to ever git the men who got that
box, however----”
The sheriff produced the old wallet.
“I found one clew,” he said unhappily, “an’ this is it; a ol’ wallet,
evidently dropped by one o’ the crooks who come fer that box. Thar’s a
clippin’ inside that tells the tale--here it is--yuh gents kind read
it.”
He passed over the clipping and sighed. After all, it would not have
been right, he decided on the spur of the moment, to keep that thing a
secret from the county commissioners. They had a right to know--the
worst. He watched their faces as Clark read the clipping aloud--and the
sheriff knew it was his official death knell as sheriff of Monte Vista
that the commissioner was reading.
Clark finished. The commissioners were silent.
“I take it that the clippin’ settles the box mystery case--an’ settles
me!” said the sheriff softly. “It means--that clippin’--that it was two
o’ the Alamosa bandits who came back an’ got that buried loot--the
Alamosa loot--the other night. It means we’ll never get ’em. It means
that they was not only here the other night, but that they was likewise
here after the robbery when they buried the loot--here twice an’ we
didn’t get ’em either time. That loot was here all those eight years an’
we didn’t get it----”
The commissioners coughed, fidgeted.