“He come into the office a little while ago,” Montgomery said. “He had a bag of worthless rocks, usin’ it as a way o’ getting my attention. While I was looking at his rocks, he stole a bag of genuine ore. I didn’t have no choice but to send my brother and two cousins to get the ore back. Didn’t know it would come to this, though.”
Montgomery looked down at the three dead bodies, then shook his head sadly. “If I had known they was goin’ to be murdered like this, I never woulda sent ’em over here. A bag plumb full of gold nuggets isn’t worth getting three good men killed.”
“Come along, mister,” the sheriff said, waving his shotgun menacingly at Matt. “You are about to learn that folks don’t come into my town to steal and murder and get away with it.”
“Sheriff, this man is lying,” Matt said. “I brought some ore in for him to assay. He tried to cheat me out of it so I told him I would go somewhere else. You think I would stop to take a bath if I stole anything in this town?”
“I don’t know what you would do, mister,” the sheriff said. “But the thing is, I know Montgomery and I don’t know you. So I reckon we’ll let the judge sort it all out.”
Matt looked at the three shotguns leveled at him. He was holding a pistol and he had a notion, but declined. He might be able to kill the sheriff and both his deputies before they realized what was happening, but then, he might not, either. They were carrying shotguns, which gave them an advantage. It would also mean killing innocent men and he couldn’t bring himself to do that.
Matt turned the pistol around and handed it, handle first, to the sheriff.
“You are making a mistake, Sheriff,” Matt said.
“You let me worry about that.”
Montgomery reached for the sack of gold ore.
“Leave it,” the sheriff said.
“Why should I leave it, Sheriff? This is the selfsame sack of ore he stole.”
“Leave it,” the sheriff said again. “We’ll let the judge decide whether or not that gold ore is yours.”
Montgomery glared at the sheriff, then looked over at Matt. “I’ll be standin’ in the crowd, watchin’ you hang,” Montgomery said.
“Let’s go, mister,” the sheriff said to Matt with a wave of his shotgun. “I got a nice jail cell for you until the judge gets here.”
Matt had been in jail for three days awaiting the arrival of the circuit judge so he could be tried. Smoke sat outside his cell visiting with him.
“I shouldn’t have left you,” Smoke said.
“Why not? If you had stayed, you would be in jail with me right now,” Matt said. “What good would that do?”
“I guess you have a point. I couldn’t help you any if I were in there with you. At least, by being out here, if you can’t convince the judge you are innocent, I’ll take matters into my own hands. I’ll get you out of here, no matter what I have to do.”
Matt was about to answer when he looked up to see the sheriff coming into the jailhouse, leading Montgomery. Montgomery was in shackles.
“What is it?” Matt asked. “What is going on?”
“You’re free to go,” the sheriff said as he opened the door to the cell. “Mr. Montgomery here will be taking your place.”
“Sheriff, I have to hand it to you for doing your job,” Matt said. “You’ve had a good three days of investigating.”
“It wasn’t me,” the sheriff said. “It was John Bryce.”
“Who?”
“John Bryce,” the sheriff repeated. “Mr. Bryce is a newspaper writer for the Swan Journal, and he has been doing some, he calls it, investigative journalism. Here, read this,” he said, handing Matt a newspaper.
An Innocent Man in Jail!
J. A. MONTGOMERY A CROOK
SHOULD BE CALLED TO ACCOUNT
We are under obligation to report to the public in general and to Sheriff Daniels in particular, the criminal activities of J. A. Montgomery who has set himself up in Swan as an assayer. Montgomery is no such thing. Although he has hanging on the wall of his office a degree from Colorado School of Mines, this newspaper is in receipt of a letter from that institution claiming that no such person as J. A. Montgomery graduated, nor was ever a student there.
Further investigation has disclosed that Montgomery is wanted by the sheriff of Madison County, Montana, where, also fraudulently passing himself off as an assayer, he murdered and robbed a prospector. The circumstances of that event are so similar to the recent event between J. A. Montgomery, his brother Clyde,two cousins, Drake and Birch, and a recent visitor to our town, Matt Jensen, that this newspaper believes Mr. Jensen, who is currently incarcerated, is innocent.
Should Matt Jensen be any longer detained, it would be a gross miscarriage of justice. Subjecting the county to a trial to establish his innocence would be a waste of time and taxpayers’ money. The writer of this piece, John Bryce, is willing to stake his reputation upon the accuracy of this report, and urges Sheriff Daniels to act quickly to correct this error.
“After the paper come out I sent a telegram to the sheriff of Madison County Montana, and he answered that Montgomery was wanted for murder, just like the newspaper article said. I went over to talk to Montgomery and found that he was tryin’ to leave town.”
“So I am free to go?” Matt asked.
“Yes, sir, you are free as a bird.”
“Is this fella, John Bryce in town?” Matt asked.
“Yes, sir, he’s over at the newspaper office right now,” Sheriff Daniels said.
“I think I’ll go look him up.”
“Do you own this paper?” Matt asked when he and Smoke found John Bryce hard at work in the newspaper office.
“Oh, heaven’s no. It takes a lot of money to own and operate your own newspaper,” John said. “I just work here for Mr. Peabody as one of his journalists. Someday I expect to own my own paper, though,” he said.
Matt, who had had the ore returned to him, reached down into his canvas bag and pulled out four pretty good sized rocks. “Here,” Matt said, handing the rocks to the newspaper man. “Cash these in and you may have your paper sooner than you realize. If there is ever anything I can do for you, just let me know.”
“Bless you, Mr. Jensen,” John said, accepting the gold with a broad smile. “I’ll never forget you for this.”
CHAPTER 2
Fullerton, Dakota Territory, twelve years later
A brick had been thrown through the front window, and great jagged spears of the glass reached out from all corners of the frame. Two months earlier John Bryce had paid a professional painter to come over from Bismarck to paint the window.
FULLERTON DEFENDER
John Bryce—Publisher
Millie Bryce—Office Manager
The letters were broad and black, outlined in white and gold. That sign, once a source of pride, was now no more than a few discordant letters on the remaining shards of glass.
Not one letter of Millie’s name remained.
At the moment John was standing inside the office of the Fullerton Defender, surveying the damage. The perpetrators had done more than just break his front window, they had also trashed the office. His arm was around his wife, and he held her close to him as she sobbed quietly. Type had been scattered about the room, newsprint had been ripped and spread around, the Washington Hand Press, by which John put out his weekly paper, was lying on its side.
They had come to the newspaper office directly from their breakfast table, after City Marshal Tipton told of the break-in. More than a dozen citizens of the town had already been drawn to the scene of the crime by the time John and Millie arrived. The group stood in a little cluster on the boardwalk in front of the building.