“Why can’t he handle it?” I asked.
“He’s a local man,” said Atwood, “and he has local prejudices to figure on.”
Steps sounded in the passage outside. Some one knocked on the door. Atwood opened it.
I gazed into a pair of steel-gray eyes which surveyed me from behind steel-rimmed spectacles, a face that had been bronzed by desert suns, and deeply lined. The hair was iron-gray and it peeped out from beneath the rim of a battered Stetson.
Atwood said: “Bob Zane, shake hands with Bill Hostler, the sheriff here.”
I got up and shook hands.
The sheriff said: “You wanted me, Frank?”
“Zane does,” said Atwood.
The sheriff looked at me, and I told him what I’d found.
“Is that all?” he asked, when I’d finished.
“That’s all,” I said, “except for one thing.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“The man had a glass jar in his hand,” I said, “and in that glass jar was a paper. The glass jar was sealed with a screw top that had been put down tight. I didn’t open the jar, but I figured the paper might be important, so I brought it along.”
“Where is it?” he asked.
I reached in my pocket and took out the round glass container, and set it on the table.
Hostler stared at it curiously. Frank Atwood picked up the glass and turned it around and around.
“Well?” he asked.
“Better open it, I guess,” said the sheriff.
Atwood unscrewed the top and fished out the piece of paper.
It was a piece of brown paper such as had evidently been used at one time as a wrapping paper.
“Good Lord!” said Atwood. “It’s a copy of the agreement that Doug Drake reached with us just before he left for the city!”
“What agreement’s that, Frank?” asked the sheriff.
Atwood got up and crossed the room to a little safe. He got down in front of it and started spinning the combination.
I reached over and picked up the paper. It felt funny in my fingers. I twisted it a bit, and then tried to tear off a corner. The paper was tough and the corner didn’t tear until after I had bent the paper so that wrinkles came in it between my thumb and finger. I looked at Bill Hostler, the sheriff, to see if he saw what had happened. He was staring at the paper too. Then he picked it up and tore a little piece from the other corner.
Atwood was back from the safe by that time, carrying a piece of paper, and he looked at us as we looked at each other, but none of us said anything.
Atwood put a piece of paper down on the desk, and I saw it was a carbon copy of the paper that had been in the glass jar.
“Doug Drake settled his difference with the Bleaching Skull Mining Company day before yesterday,” he said. “He wasn’t going to say anything about it until he had recorded the original. He was on his way down to get it recorded.”
Sheriff Hostler looked over Atwood’s shoulder and read the writing that was on the paper.
“How did it happen the agreement was drawn on this kind of paper?” he asked.
Atwood grinned.
“We made the settlement at his house,” he said, “and I’ve had enough dealings with Doug Drake to know that when he was ready to sign was the time to get him to sign. I had an old piece of carbon paper in my pocket, and he scraped up some brown wrapping paper that had been around a purchase he had made in the city, and we executed the agreement, the original and one copy, right then.”
Hostler said, slowly: “Well, that agreement seems to give the mining company the complete right to go into the property that’s been in dispute.”
“It does,” said Atwood. “Drake got tired of fighting us.”
“What do you do under those circumstances?” I asked. “Bring the body up for an inquest?”
Sheriff Hostler shook his head.
“I have a general understanding with the authorities on those things. We notify the people that are interested and overlook the red tape.”
“Who’s interested in this case?” I asked.
“A daughter,” said Frank Atwood, “named Bessie Drake. I guess you’d better tell her, sheriff.”
Bill Hostler looked over at me and said: “Was the man about fifty-six, with gray hair and light blue eyes, a fellow who weighed about a hundred and fifty, and was about five feet eight inches tall, wearing blue overalls and a patched jumper?”
I nodded and said: “One of the burros was grayish and it was an old 30–30 rifle that was in the saddle scabbard.”
Sheriff Hostler reached for his hat.
“Well,” he said, “I’d better go break the news to Bess.”
When the sheriff had gone I asked Frank Atwood a question:
“This man Drake left here, you say?”
“Yes, he left here two or three days ago.”
“And had the agreement with him?”
“Yes, he was taking the original out to have it recorded. I had the duplicate copy here in the safe.”
“Who’s this Theodore Sproul who is a witness?” I asked.
“That’s Ted Sproul who’s outside here. I’d better get him in.”
He went to the door and called: “Oh, Ted.”
A man came in who had black eyes that were virtually expressionless. His face showed no expression whatever. His mouth was wide and firm. He wore a shirt which was open at the neck, and a handkerchief which was knotted around his neck. He wore overalls, cowboy boots, a vest, and a cartridge belt with a six-gun dangling on his hip.
The black eyes regarded me in steady, questioning appraisal.
“Bob Zane, here,” explained Atwood, “is a man who has been sent in by the directors to sort of assume charge of our campaign here against lawlessness. Sproul, Mr. Zane, is one of our guards here who has shown considerable aptitude for the work.”
Sproul grinned and said: “Thanks.”
“You’ll work under Zane, Sproul,” said Frank Atwood.
The black eyes came to my face again and the face twisted in a slow smile.
“That’ll be a pleasure,” he said. “I’ve heard of Bob Zane.”
“How many other guards have you got?” I asked.
“Two,” said Atwood. “There’s Sam Easton and Phil Stope.”
“What’s been your main trouble?” I asked.
“Everything,” he said. “We’ve lost payrolls and high-grade ore. We’ve been hampered at every turn by vicious lawlessness. For the most part, the inhabitants of the town seem to be fighting us. We’re the big mining company here and every one hates us because we control most of the property.”
“That makes it interesting,” I said.
“Don’t it?” said Ted Sproul, and grinned.
“But you must have some definite idea of who you’re fighting,” I said. “It isn’t just a question of isolated lawlessness. There must be some head to it.”
“There is,” said Atwood slowly, “but we can’t get a line on him.”
Ted Sproul spoke in his slow desert drawl.
“He’s right,” he said, “we can’t seem to get a thing. Stuff disappears, payrolls are held up and stacks of high-grade ore vanish. The man who does it has an uncanny knowledge of just what he’s after. He’s got some kind of a spy system, because he knows just what we’re doing.
“For instance, when we get in a payroll, we start three separate pack trains over the grade, only one of them having the actual cash. This bandit never makes the mistake of getting the wrong pack train. He seems to know right where the money is, and he goes after it.”
“The men are all masked, of course?” I said.
“Oh, yes, sure,” said Sproul, “and they have a sweet habit of shooting from ambush. They kill first and rob afterwards.”