down through the brush, and they saw him now. Hatless, his clothes torn,
tall, thin, running clumsily, trying to look back. He wasn’t looking for
anyone ahead of him, and he was heading for Henry and Judge. He jerked
to a stop, gun raised, when Henry hit him in a clumsy football tackle.
In fact, Henry missed him with both hands, but his ample girth struck
the man just behind the knees with terrific force, and he went down
backwards, flinging his gun far into the brush.
Both of them were knocked out. Judge went over carefully and looked them
both over. Henry sat up, his face purple, as he tried to wheeze air back
into his tortured lungs, but the other man lay quiet, arms outstretched,
breathing heavily. Henry’s gun was on the ground, and Judge picked it
up.
Another man was running down through the brush toward them. Judge cocked
the gun, his face grim, as the man came ahead, really smashing his way.
He crashed into the opening, stumbled to a stop, and stood there staring
at Judge. It was Oscar Johnson, torn, disheveled, but very much in
earnest.
He came on and squatted on his heels beside Judge. Henry was beginning
to recover. Oscar looked at the other man, and a slow grin spread across
his big face.
“Ay vill be yiggered, Yudge!” he exclaimed.
Henry drew a deep breath, and whispered, “Professor Fossil.”
“Yah,” grinned Oscar. “Ay vass chasing him, Hanry. By golly, das faller
can run!”
“You--were--chasing--him?” panted Henry.
“Yah, sure. How are you, Hanry?”
“I do not know, Oscar. I doubt if I shall ever know again. How on earth
did you get down here?”
“Oh, that vass easy. Freeholey know the odder trail. Ve caught all free
of dem, Hanry.”
“All three of them?” queried Henry weakly. “Three, you said?”
“Yah--su-re. Couple of dem vere vounded, but Pete Gonyer, he vars all
right, until he vent crazy and tried to shoot us. Who is that yigger
over dere, Yudge?”
“That,” replied Judge, “is Bob Stickler.”
“Yudas Priest! How did he get here, Yudge?”
Judge shook his head. “He just came, Oscar.”
“Three?” queried Henry. “Pete Gonyer and who else?”
“Lou Greer and Yud Bailey.”
“Jud Bailey? Oscar, Bailey is dead!”
“No-o-o,” drawled Oscar. “All he got is bullet in his arm.”
“But--why--didn’t he go into the canyon last night?”
“He yumped,” said Oscar. “Ve missed him, and he valked to de ranch.”
* * * * *
Bob Stickler stirred and managed to sit up. He rubbed his head and
stared around, looking at each of them separately, as though trying to
reason out what this was all about. Then he tilted his head and looked
up at the canyon walls. The professor was moving his arms and legs, as
he recovered. The three men watched them. Consciousness came quickly to
the professor, and with it came realization. Then he sat up, flexing his
legs.
Stickler started to get up, but Oscar went over to him, and the manager
of the Yellow Warrior sat down again.
“Yust stay like you vere,” said Oscar.
Another man was coming down the canyon. It was Frijole. He broke into
the open, gun in hand, and stood there, staring at them.
“Velcome de party, Freeholey,” grinned Oscar.
“Yeah,” said Frijole, and came on slowly, staring at the professor and
Bob Stickler.
“Slim’s got the others,” said Frijole. “They’re roped. Where in hell did
these two come from?”
“Mr. Stickler came up the canyon,” said Judge, “and I hit him with a
rock. Mr. Fossil came down the canyon, and Henry tackled him around the
knees.”
“Nice work!” grunted Frijole. “We found ’em, startin’ up the trail,
Henry. They’ve got four pack-horses, loaded with--do you want to tell
’em, Professor?”
Professor Fossil didn’t. Henry said, “Loaded with jewelry ore from the
Yellow Warrior, Frijole?”
“You knowed, Henry?”
“No--I merely guessed. What’d your version, Stickler?”
“I am not talkin’,” said Stickler sullenly.
“Pete Gonyer was the leader of the gang,” said Frijole. “That dad-blamed
Jud Bailey confessed. He thinks he’s goin’ to die from a bullet in the
arm. Where-at is yore horses, Henry?”
“About a mile from the other end of the canyon. You know where it makes
a sharp right-hand turn? You do? Well, the horses are on the left-hand
side, in a little thicket. But how----?”
“We’ll get ’em from the other end--later. Let’s drift.”
Both Stickler and the professor were able to walk. Less than a quarter
of a mile up the canyon they found the others. They unpacked the horses
and tied Pete Gonyer to a saddle. He was in bad shape, as were the
others, but they were able to get back to the grades.
They had the four pack-horses, and seven saddle-horses. The trail was
bad, but they got up to the main road without mishap, just as the
valley-bound stage came into view. The driver pulled up beside them and
looked with amazement at the cavalcade.
Out from inside the stage came Tom Akers and two others of the Board of
Commissioners, staring, mumbling. Akers said:
“What happened to Pete Gonyer? Conroy, what does this mean?”
“It means,” replied Henry wearily, “that we have busted up the
high-graders--and Mr. Gonyer, whom you were going to appoint as sheriff
in my stead, was the leader. Professor Fossil was here, merely to be
able to ship samples back to his home--samples of Yellow Warrior gold.
Mr. Stickler handled things for them at the mine. You see--”
“My God!” gasped Akers. “It can’t be true!”
“It looks true to me,” said one of the Commissioners dryly.
“Congratulations, Sheriff Conroy.”
“I don’t understand,” complained Akers. “Pete Gonyer isn’t that sort of
man. Why, I’d bet my soul--”
“If you do not mind, gentlemen,” interrupted Henry, “you will ride
horseback the rest of the way, and we will use the stage as an
ambulance. Later we will recover the Yellow Warrior gold.”
The cavalcade came into Tonto City, the stage almost an hour late, and
drew up at Doctor Bogart’s house, where the wounded were unloaded. James
Wadsworth Longfellow Pelly was there, trying to find out what on earth
had happened.
“Did you,” he asked Akers, “hold that meeting and decide to remove Henry
Conroy?”
Tom Akers looked bleakly at Pelly, but said nothing. This was no time to
talk of resignations. He followed them to the jail with Stickler and the
professor. Stickler said, “I’ll sue the county for false arrest, Conroy.
You can’t prove anything against me.”
“We shall try, sir,” said Henry wearily. “What do you think, Professor?”
“After what has happened,” replied the professor soberly, “I’m sure you
will try.”
* * * * *
With their prisoners behind the bars, Henry led the way over to the
King’s Castle. There was quite a crowd in there, discussing what had
happened. Mack Greer, the manager, saw Henry and came to him.
“Good work, sheriff,” he said. “Mighty good work.”
“All praise aside, sir,” said Henry soberly, “I would like to see Violet
La Verne.”
Greer looked curiously at Henry and at the other men with him. Then he
turned to one of the other girls, who had come in close, and asked,
“Where is Violet?”
“She’s up in her room, packing up, Mack--she’s quit.”
They trooped up the stairs and knocked on her door.
“All right--in a minute. Take that rig around to the back and I’ll meet
you out there,” said a voice from inside.
“She hired a livery rig to take her to Scorpion Bend,” whispered one of
the curious girls. Henry nodded.
Then the door opened and Violet La Verne stood there, staring at the
crowd. She was dressed for traveling, and had an old valise in her hand.
“Who shot Ben Todd?” asked Henry quietly.
The valise dropped from her hand and she closed her eyes for a moment.
Henry went on kindly:
“You see, my dear, I happen to know that Ben Todd couldn’t read nor
write; so that will had to be a fake. All the rest of the gang are
either in jail or being probed for lead, so you might as well talk and
save what skin you have left.”
“Stickler killed him,” she whispered huskily. “I grub-staked Ben
Todd--I--I honestly did. Stickler wrote that will. He thought Todd had
struck it rich and that he’d record the location--but it--it wasn’t
recorded--because it wasn’t a mine--he stole two sacks of high-grade ore
from the Circle G. That’s the truth--and--and nothing but the--”
And then Violet La Verne went flat in a faint.
Back in the office, thirty minutes later, Henry, Judge, Oscar, Slim and
Frijole sat there a tin-cup in hand. They were a bedraggled crew.
Stickler had confessed--and the troubles of the sheriff’s office were
over for the time being.
“You see,” explained Henry, “about a year ago I helped Ben Todd make out
a location notice. He could neither read nor write, and I felt very sure
that he could not learn in a year. That was their first blunder. I
suspected theft of that gold by Todd, because he did not record his
claim. Todd was careful.”
“But why did you suspect the professor?” asked Judge.
“His lack of knowledge of the rocks, Judge; and he was supposed to be an
archaeologist. I am not versed in it, but somewhere I had read of them,
and I’m sure that either the Palaeozoic or the Mesozoic rock contains no
fossils, while the other is filled with them. I believe the Palaeozoic
is the blank rock. But, Judge, the professor said he would have to
classify them.”
“And what other clues?” asked Judge.
“Well, when the professor escaped from Doctor Bogart’s place last night,
I realized that he was going to warn Pete Gonyer; so I--well, Judge, I
decided to beat them to the fossils.”
“Speaking of rocks,” said Judge soberly, “I wonder just what I hit
Stickler with.”
“Well, here’s luck,” said Frijole. “Everythin’ turned out fine.”
“You forget somet’ing, Freeholey,” said Oscar soberly.
“What was that, Oscar?”
“Das lef’ front wheel of the bockboard.”
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the January 25, 1948
issue of _Short Stories_.]