The Sheriff's Son

  Chapter I

  Dingwell Gives Three Cheers

  Dave Dingwell had been in the saddle almost since daylight had wakenedhim to the magic sunshine of a world washed cool and miraculously cleanby the soft breath of the hills. Steadily he had jogged across thedesert toward the range. Afternoon had brought him to the foothills,where a fine rain blotted out the peaks and softened the sharp outlinesof the landscape to a gentle blur of green loveliness.

  The rider untied his slicker from the rear of the saddle and slippedinto it. He had lived too long in sun-and-wind-parched New Mexico toresent a shower. Yet he realized that it might seriously affect thesuccess of what he had undertaken.

  If there had been any one to observe this solitary traveler, he wouldhave said that the man gave no heed to the beauty of the day. Since hehad broken camp his impassive gaze had been fixed for the most part onthe ground in front of him. Occasionally he swung his long leg acrossthe rump of the horse and dismounted to stoop down for a closerexamination of the hoofprints he was following. They were not recenttracks. He happened to know that they were about three days old.Plain as a printed book was the story they told him.

  The horses that had made these tracks had been ridden by men in adesperate hurry. They had walked little and galloped much. Not oncehad they fallen into the easy Spanish jog-trot used so much in thecasual travel of the South-west. The spur of some compelling motivehad driven this party at top speed.

  Since Dingwell knew the reason for such haste he rode warily. Hisalert caution suggested the panther. The eye of the man pounced surelyupon every bit of cactus or greasewood behind which a possible foemight be hidden. His lean, sun-tanned face was an open letter ofrecommendation as to his ability to take care of himself in a worldthat had often glared at him wolfishly. A man in a temper to pick aquarrel would have looked twice at Dave Dingwell before choosing him asthe object of it--and then would have passed on to a less competentcitizen.

  The trail grew stiffer. It circled into a draw down which tumbled ajocund little stream. Trout, it might be safely guessed, lurked herein the riffles and behind the big stones. An ideal camping-groundthis, but the rider rejected it apparently without consideration. Hepassed into the canon beyond, and so by a long uphill climb came to thehigher reaches of the hills.

  He rode patiently, without any hurry, without any hesitation. Hereagain a reader of character might have found something significant inthe steadiness of the man. Once on the trail, it would not be easy toshake him off.

  By the count of years Dingwell might be in the early forties. Manylittle wrinkles radiated fanlike from the corners of his eyes. Butwhatever his age time had not tamed him. In the cock of those samesteel-blue eyes was something jaunty, something almost debonair, thatcarried one back to a youth of care-free rioting in a land of sunshine.Not that Mr. Dingwell was given to futile dissipations. He had thereputation of a responsible ranchman. But it is not to be denied thatlittle devils of mischief at times danced in those orbs.

  Into the hills the trail wound across gulches and along the shouldersof elephant humps. It brought him into a country of stunted pines andred sandstone, and so to the summit of a ridge which formed part of therim of a saucer-shaped basin. He looked down into an open park hedgedin on the far side by mountains. Scrubby pines straggled up the slopesfrom arroyos that cleft the hills. By divers unknown paths these ledinto the range beyond.

  A clump of quaking aspens was the chief landmark in the bed of thepark. Though this was the immediate destination of Mr. Dingwell, sincethe hoofprints he was following plunged straight down toward the grove,yet he took certain precautions before venturing nearer. He made surethat the 45-70 Winchester that lay across the saddle was in workingorder. Also he kept along the rim of the saucer-shaped park till hecame to a break where a creek tumbled down in a white foam through aravine.

  "It's a heap better to be safe than to be sorry," he explained tohimself cheerfully. "They call this Lonesome Park, and maybe so itdeserves its name to-day. But you never can tell, Dave. We'll makehaste slowly if you don't mind."

  Along the bank of the creek he descended, letting his sure-footedcowpony pick its own way while he gave strict attention to the scenery.At a bend of the stream he struck again the trail of the riders he hadbeen following and came from there directly to the edge of the aspenclump.

  Apparently his precautions were unnecessary. He was alone. Therecould be no doubt of that. Only the tracks of feet and the ashes of adead fire showed that within a few days a party had camped here.

  Dingwell threw his bridle to the ground and with his rifle tucked underhis arm examined the tracks carefully. Sometimes he was down on handsand knees peering at the faint marks of which he was reading the story.Foot by foot he quartered over the sand, entirely circling the grovebefore he returned to the ashes of the dead fire. Certain facts he haddiscovered. One was that the party which had camped here had split upand taken to the hills by different trails instead of as a unit. Stillanother was that so far as he could see there had been no digging in ornear the grove.

  It was raining more definitely now, so that the distant peaks werehidden in a mist. In the lee of the aspens it was still dry. Dingwellstood there frowning at the ashes of the dead campfire. He had had atheory, and it was not working out quite as he had hoped. For themoment he was at a mental impasse. Part of what had happened he couldguess almost as well as if he had been present to see it. Sweeney'sposse had given the fugitives a scare at Dry Gap and driven them backinto the desert. In the early morning they had tried the hills againand had reached Lonesome Park. But they could not be sure that Sweeneyor some one of the posses sent out by the railroad was not close athand. Somewhere in the range back of them the pursuers were combingthe hills, and into those very hills the bandits had to go to disappearin their mountain haunts.

  Even before reaching the park Dingwell had guessed the robbers wouldseparate here and strike each for individual safety. But what had theydone with the loot? That was the thing that puzzled him.

  They had divided the gold here. Or one of them had taken it with himto an appointed rendezvous in the hills. Or they had cached it, One ofthese three plans had been followed. But which?

  Dingwell rubbed the open fingers of one hand slowly through hissunburnt thatch of hair. "Doggone my hide, if it don't look like theytook it with them," he murmured. "But that ain't reasonable, Dave.The man in charge of this hold-up knew his business. It was smoothwork all the way through. If it hadn't been for bad luck he would havegot away with the whole thing fine. They still had the loot with themwhen they got here. No doubt about that. Well, then! He wouldn'tdivvy up here, because, if they separated, and any one of them gotcaught with the gold on him, it would be a give-away. But if theydidn't have the dough on them, it would not matter if some of the boyswere caught. You can't do anything with a man riding peaceable throughthe hills looking for strays, no matter how loaded to the guards withsuspicions you may be. So they would cache the loot. Wouldn't they?Sure they would if they had any sense. But tell me where, Dave."

  His thoughtful eyes had for some moments been resting on something thatheld them. He stooped and picked up a little chip of sealing-wax.Instantly he knew how it had come here. The gold sacks had been sealedby the express company with wax. At least one of the sacks had beenopened here by the robbers.

  Did this mean they had divided their treasure here? It might meanthat. Or it might mean that before they cached it they had opened onesack to see how much it held. Dingwell clung to the opinion that thelatter was the truth, partly because this marched with his hopes andpartly because it seemed to him more likely. There would be a big riskin taking their haul with them farther. There was none at all incaching it.

  It was odd how that little heap of ashes in the center of the camp-firedrew his eye. Ashes did not arrange themselves that way naturally.Some one had raked these into a pile. Why? And who?

  He could not answe
r those questions offhand. But he had a large bumpof curiosity about some things. Otherwise he would not have been wherehe was that afternoon. With his boot he swept the ashes aside. Theground beneath them was a little higher than it was in the immediateneighborhood. Why should the bandits have built their fire on a smallhillock when there was level ground adjacent? There might be a reasonunderneath that little rise of ground or there might not. Mr. Dingwellgot out his long hunting-knife, fell on his knees, and began to dig atthe center of the spot where the campfire had been.

  The dirt flew. With his left hand he scooped it from the hole he wasmaking. Presently the point of his knife struck metal. Three minuteslater he unearthed a heavy gunnysack. Inside of it were a lot ofsmaller sacks bearing the seal of the Western Express Company. He hadfound the gold stolen by the Rutherford gang from the Pacific Flyer.

  Dave was pleased with himself. It had been a good day's work. Headmitted cheerfully that there was not another man in New Mexico whocould have pulled off successfully the thing he had just done. Theloot had been well hidden. It had been a stroke of genius to cache itin the spot where the camp-fire was afterward built. But he hadoutguessed Jess Tighe that time. His luck had sure stood up fine. Theoccasion called for a demonstration.

  He took off his broad-rimmed gray hat. "Three rousing cheers, Mr.Dingwell," he announced ceremoniously. "Now, all together."

  Rising to his toes, he waved his hat joyously, worked his shoulderslike a college cheer leader, and gave a dumb pantomime of yelling. Hehad intended to finish off with a short solo dance step, for it is notevery day that a man finds twenty thousand dollars in gold bars buriedin the sand.

  But he changed his mind. As he let himself slowly down to his heelsthere was a sardonic grin on his brown face. In outguessing Tighe hehad slipped one little mental cog, after all, and the chances were thathe would pay high for his error. A man had been lying in the mesquiteclose to the creek watching him all the time. He knew it because hehad caught the flash of light on the rifle barrel that covered him.

  The gold-digger beckoned with his hat as he called out. "Come rightalong to the party. You're welcome as a frost in June."

  A head raised itself cautiously out of the brush. "Don't you move, orI'll plug lead into you."

  "I'm hog-tied," answered Dingwell promptly. His mind worked swiftly.The man with the drop on him was Chet Fox, a hanger-on of theRutherford gang, just as he had been seventeen years before when hebetrayed John Beaudry to death. Fox was shrewd and wily, but nogunman. If Chet was alone, his prisoner did not propose to remain one.Dave did not intend to make any fool breaks, but it would be hard luckif he could not contrive a chance to turn the tables.

  "Reach for the roof."

  Dingwell obeyed orders.

  Fox came forward very cautiously. Not for an instant did his beadyeyes lift from the man he covered.

  "Turn your back to me."

  The other man did as he was told.

  Gingerly Fox transferred the rifle to his left hand, then drew arevolver. He placed the rifle against the fork of a young aspen andthe barrel of the six-gun against the small of Dingwell's back.

  "Make just one break and you're a goner," he threatened.

  With deft fingers he slid the revolver of the cattleman from itsholster. Then, having collected Dingwell's rifle, he fell back a fewsteps.

  "Now you can go on with those health exercises I interrupted if you'vea mind to," Fox suggested with a sneer.

  His prisoner turned dejected eyes upon him. "That's right. Rub it in,Chet. Don't you reckon I know what a long-eared jackass I am?"

  "There's two of us know it then," said Fox dryly. "Now, lift thatgunnysack to your saddle and tie it on behind."

  This done, Fox pulled himself to the saddle, still with a wary eye onhis captive.

  "Hit the trail along the creek," he ordered.

  Dingwell moved forward reluctantly. It was easy to read chagrin anddepression in the sag of his shoulders and the drag of his feet.

  The pig eyes of the fat little man on horseback shone with triumph. Hewas enjoying himself hugely. It was worth something to have tamed sodebonair a dare-devil as Dingwell had the reputation of being. He hadthe fellow so meek that he would eat out of his hand.