More than skin deep

Old Silas K. Mears dashed madly down the main street of the little mountain town, his arms waving excitedly, whiskers blowing back about his ears. “Robbery! Murder! Thieves!” He was shouting at the top of his voice.

From stores and houses people poured forth into the early morning sunlight, babbling questions, calling back and forth, mingling comment with exclamation. Soon a ring of excited townsfolk barred the progress of the excited man, and he slowed his gait to a walk and looked wildly around him.

“Telephone the sheriff!” he said. “We gotta get him out here at once, an’ we’d better get some man from the city that knows all about such things. This here ain’t no ordinary job. This is a real crime.”

Pushed inward by the eager newcomers who gathered on the outside of the noisy circle, those about Mears pressed forward until he was fairly touching the ring on all sides. Then the men parted, as H. F. Horn, local justice of the peace and oracle of the law, came waddling his way through the men.

“Calm down, Mears, calm down an’ tell us about it in a connected way. Mebbe I’d better have ye come down to the office an’ tell me in private, because there might be some things that had better be kept secret, so’s we won’t tip off the crooks.”

That suggestion was greeted by silent opposition on the part of the crowd. The circle, having opened wide enough to allow the pompous justice of the peace ingress, walled around him with unyielding finality, standing on tiptoed hostility, refusing to be balked in its desire to hear the news.

Judge Horn was not particularly popular, anyway. He had blossomed out with a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles after a trip to the city, spectacles that he really didn’t need, since he had gone more than sixty years without any aid to his vision, and there was more than a suspicion on the part of the inhabitants of Mesa Flat that the judge had been merely trying to “high-tone” the boys. Judge Horn waddled not so much because of his excessive flesh as because of his ponderous dignity. His face was never seen when it was not puckered into a portentous and scholarly frown. He delighted to walk down the main street of the town, a calfskin law book under his arm, a cigar in his mouth, and his eyes fixed straight ahead in a determined stare of studied preoccupation.

Silas Mears recognized the authority of the law, regained his breath, and launched into a disjointed account of his troubles.

“The safe--they got everything--cleaned me out. This here nitroglycerin stuff blew her all to smithereens and busted everything wide open; ten thousand dollars an’ murder; yep, Ben Drake, my old clerk, the one that does the sweepin’ out an’ all that stuff, is lyin’ there with his head smashed in, an’ his eyes rolled up, and ten thousand dollars gone, an’ lots o’ papers blown here an’ there and everywhere.

“I’m tellin’ you fellows we gotta get busy. We gotta get the sheriff, an’ I’m goin’ to get this here detective from the city that puts on the radio talk about guardin’ against crime. I want a regular smart feller to handle this here crime.”

There came the soft pad of a horse’s hoofs in the dust of the unpaved street, and “Dad” Anderson drew rein on the outskirts of the milling circle of humanity.

“Hi, there--you, Mears! What’s the trouble?”

Mears looked up at the sound of the voice, his eyes ranging over the heads of the spectators to the grim, lined face of the man on horseback, a face that was seamed with years, bronzed with the sun, and in which there twinkled a pair of kindly gray eyes.