The Sheriffs Son | Page 5

of the corral. The glint of the
sun heliographed danger from the rifle barrels of two men just topping
the brow of the hill. Two more were stealing up through a draw to the
right. A bullet whistled past the head of the officer.
The father spoke quietly to his little boy. "Run, son, to the stable."
The little chap began to sob. Bullets were already kicking up the dust
behind them. Roy clung in terror to the leg of his father.
Beaudry caught up the child and made a dash for the stable. He reached
it, just as Sharp and his horse-wrangler were disappearing into the loft.
There was no time to climb the ladder with Royal. John flung open the
top of the feed-bin, dropped the boy inside, and slammed down the lid.
The story of the fight that followed is still an epic in the Southwest.
There was no question of fair play. The enemies of the sheriff intended
to murder him.
The men in his rear were already clambering over the corral fence. One
of them had a scarlet handkerchief around his neck. Beaudry fired from
his hip and the vivid kerchief lurched forward into the dust. Almost at
the same moment a sharp sting in the fleshy part of his leg told the
officer that he was wounded.
From front and rear the attackers surged into the stable. The sheriff
emptied the second barrel of buckshot into the huddle and retreated into
an empty horse-stall. The smoke of many guns filled the air so that the
heads thrust at him seemed oddly detached from bodies. A red-hot
flame burned its way through his chest. He knew he was mortally
wounded.

Hal Rutherford plunged at him, screaming an oath. "We've got him,
boys."
Beaudry stumbled back against the manger, the arms of his foe clinging
to him like ropes of steel. Twice he brought down the butt of his
sawed-off gun on the black head of Rutherford. The grip of the big
hillman grew lax, and as the man collapsed, his fingers slid slackly
down the thighs of the officer.
John dropped the empty weapon and dragged out a Colt's forty-four. He
fired low and fast, not stopping to take aim. Another flame seared its
way through his body. The time left him now could be counted in
seconds.
But it was not in the man to give up. The old rebel yell of Morgan's
raiders quavered from his throat. They rushed him. With no room even
for six-gun work he turned his revolver into a club. His arm rose and
fell in the mêlée as the drive of the rustlers swept him to and fro.
So savage was the defense of their victim against the hillmen's
onslaught that he beat them off. A sudden panic seized them, and those
that could still travel fled in terror.
They left behind them four dead and two badly wounded. One would
be a cripple to the day of his death. Of those who escaped there was not
one that did not carry scars for months as a memento of the battle.
The sheriff was lying in the stall when Sharp found him. From out of
the feed-bin the owner of the corral brought his boy to the father whose
life was ebbing. The child was trembling like an aspen leaf.
"Picture," gasped Beaudry, his hand moving feebly toward the chain.
A bullet had struck the edge of the daguerreo-type case.
"She . . . tried . . . to save me . . . again," murmured the dying man with
a faint smile.

He looked at the face of his sweetheart. It smiled an eager invitation to
him. A strange radiance lit his eyes.
Then his head fell back. He had gone to join his Lady-Bird.
Chapter I
Dingwell Gives Three Cheers
Dave Dingwell had been in the saddle almost since daylight had
wakened him to the magic sunshine of a world washed cool and
miraculously clean by the soft breath of the hills. Steadily he had
jogged across the desert toward the range. Afternoon had brought him
to the foothills, where a fine rain blotted out the peaks and softened the
sharp outlines of the landscape to a gentle blur of green loveliness.
The rider untied his slicker from the rear of the saddle and slipped into
it. He had lived too long in sun-and-wind-parched New Mexico to
resent a shower. Yet he realized that it might seriously affect the
success of what he had undertaken.
If there had been any one to observe this solitary traveler, he would
have said that the man gave no heed to the beauty of the day. Since he
had broken camp his impassive gaze had been fixed for the most part
on