n woodcutter who was on
the way to town with a load of wood. He had of course been held by the
police and had been closely questioned, but it was easily established that
he had no connection with the crime.

It was evident that the Don had been shot from ambush with a rifle, and
probably from a considerable distance, but absolutely no trace of the
assassin had been found. Not only the chief of police and several
patrolmen, and the sheriff with a posse, but also many private citizens in
automobiles had rushed to the scene of the crime and joined in the search.
The surrounding country was dry and rocky. Not even a track had been
found.

The motive of the murder was evidently not robbery, for nothing had been
taken, although the Don carried a valuable watch and a considerable sum of
money. Indeed, there was no evidence that the murderer had even approached
the body.

The Don had been a staunch Republican, and the _Morning Herald_, also
Republican, advanced the theory that he had been killed by political
enemies. This theory was ridiculed by the _Evening Journal_, which was
Democratic.

The local police arrested as a suspect a man who was found in hiding near
a water tank at the railroad station, but no evidence against him could be
found and he had to be released. The sheriff extracted a confession of
guilt from a sheep herder who was found about ten miles from the scene of
the crime, but it was subsequently proved by this man's relatives that he
was at home and asleep at the time the crime was committed, and that he
was well known to be of unsound mind. For some days the newspapers
continued daily to record the fact that a "diligent search" for the
murderer was being conducted, but this search gradually came to an end
along with public interest in the crime.

CHAPTER XIII

The day after the news of his uncle's murder reached him, Ramon lay on his
bed in his darkened room fully dressed in a new suit of black. He was not
ill, and anything would have been easier for him than to lie there with
nothing to do but to think and to stare at a single narrow sunbeam which
came through a rent in the window blind. But it was a Mexican custom, old
and revered, for the family of one recently dead to lie upon its beds in
the dark and so to receive the condolences of friends and the consolations
of religion. To disregard this custom would have been most unwise for an
ambitious young man, and