“I git out de beeg house yesterday noon,” said Perez, “I ketch de train to Salida; a friend bring me in wagon here. I come right to yuhr office, but eet ees yet locked up.” “Central, give me Monte Vista 234 R, please,” began the sheriff, but he hung up the receiver when the office door banged open and old “Grandpa” McMeel stumbled into the office, his washed-out-blue eyes as wide as saucers. The sheriff and Shorty both sensed instantly that something was doing! Grandpa McMeel was too calm, too easy-going ordinarily, to come leaping into the office without waiting to knock, all breathless, his chin whiskers jerking convulsively as he tried to master his excitement. “Gents!” burst out Grandpa wildly. “Take it easy, take it easy, Grandpa!” suggested Shorty, jumping up to help the old man to the nearest chair. “Jus’ ketch yuhr breath afore yuh try any talkin’. Yuh ain’t seen a ghost, has yuh? Or the courthouse ain’t on fire, or----” “Ghost! Fire!” cried Grandpa shrilly. “Huh! Say, thar’s devilment afoot, that’s what! Leave it to me to find out about it, too! I wasn’t a Injun scout fer nuthin’ in my young days! Thar they was, down under the bridge, workin’ with them flash-on-an’-off lights an’ shovels, an’ diggin’ fer all they was worth----” “Who?” asked Sheriff Cook suddenly. “Who? How the heck do I know?” thundered Grandpa peevishly. “I seen ’em, that’s all! They was a-buryin’ a body, I figgered! Or a-diggin’ one up, mebbe! I don’t know! I wasn’t so sure, either, until this mawnin’. Yuh see I had a toddy las’ night over to ‘Pap’ Stewart’s house an’---- But this mawin’ I goes down thar, under the bridge, an’ thar it is, purty as yuh please, a big hole!” The sheriff looked at Shorty and Shorty looked at the sheriff, while old Grandpa fought for more breath. Manuel Perez, his face wearing a puzzled expression, got up and sauntered over to the window, as though withdrawing, as best he could, from a conference that might be more or less private in nature, judging from Grandpa’s preliminary revelations. Shorty glanced at Perez just as the sheriff, recovering himself, asked Grandpa a question. “Yuh say yuh seen a big hole under the bridge?” “Sure,” cried Grandpa breathlessly, “an’ tracks, too! They was two men down thar workin’ las’ night--about midnight--an’ I could hear the shovels a-goin’. I leaned over the bridge an’ I could see their flash-on-an’-off lights, too. They dug up a big box an’ lugged it off. They waded Coyote Creek with it, an’----” “Two men,” repeated Sheriff Cook. “Yuh can’t describe ’em----” “Describe ’em, heck!” said Grandpa angrily. “They was shadders, that’s all--shadders! I tell yuh it was dark as a bag o’ black cats! I went down this mawnin’ an’ saw the hole an’----” There was a rap at the door and before the sheriff or Shorty could sing out an invitation to enter, it swung wide and in stepped Fred Speers, bubbling over with excitement. He wasted no time on preliminaries at all. He blurted his story right out!