pointing
Mrs. Scholland administratrix of the Fritz estate. Not even in that
capacity would Major Murphy deliver to her the will and insurance policy
when they were demanded, and it is claimed that he destroyed the will.
Certainly it was never probated. Murphy was accustomed to keep this will
in a tin can, hid in a hole in the adobe wall of his store building.
There were no safes at that time and place. The policy had been left as
security for a loan of nine hundred dollars advanced by a firm known as
Spiegelberg Brothers. Few ingredients were now lacking for a typical
melodrama. Meantime the plot thickened by the failure of the insurance
company!

McSween, in the interest of Mrs. Scholland, now went East to see what
could be done in the collection of the insurance policy. He was able
finally, in 1876, to collect the full amount of ten thousand dollars,
and this he deposited in his own name in a St. Louis bank then owned by
Colonel Hunter. He had been obliged to pay the Spiegelbergs the face of
their loan before he could get the policy to take East with him. He
wished to be secured against this advancement and reimbursed as well for
his expenses, which, together with his fee, amounted to a considerable
sum. Moreover, the German Minister enjoined McSween from turning over
any of this money, as there were other heirs in Germany. Major Murphy
owed McSween some money. Colonel Fritz also died owing McSween
thirty-three hundred dollars, fees due on legal work. Yet Murphy
demanded the full amount of the insurance policy from McSween again and
again. Murphy, Riley & Dolan now sued out an attachment on McSween's
property, and levied on the goods in the Tunstall-McSween store. The
"law" was now doing its work; but there was a very liberal
interpretation put upon the law's intent. As construed by Sheriff
William Brady, the writ applied also to the Englishman Tunstall's
property in cattle and horses on the Rio Feliz ranch; which, of course,
was high-handed illegality. McSween's statement that he had no interest
in the Feliz ranch served no purpose. Brady and Murphy were warm
friends. The lawyer McSween had accused them of being something more
than that--allies and conspirators. McSween and Tunstall bought Lincoln
county scrip cheap; but when they presented it to the county treasurer,
Murphy, it was not paid, and it was charged that he and Brady had made
away with the county funds. That was never proved, for, as a matter of
fact, n