‘It’s mine,’ he said shortly, and walked out, stuffing the mail in his pocket. The telegram read:
MRS MORGAN PASSED AWAY SUDDENLY AND WAS BURIED LAST
SUNDAY STOP TRACED SON TO DEPOT WHERE HE PURCHASED
TICKET TO CANONVILLE.J. E. BLAIR
Dave Morgan halted at the edge of the wooden sidewalk, a puzzled expression on his face.
‘Mrs. Morgan!’ he exclaimed to himself. ‘So old Pete had a wife and a son, eh?’
He started to laugh, but checked it quickly. When had Pete married, he wondered. He had been on the same range with Peter for over twenty years. Of course, Peter had taken trips East with cattle, and it had been said that Peter was a wild devil in those days, but no one had ever mentioned the fact that Peter had been married.
Probably got drunk, married in that condition, and had been forced to support the woman away from Mesa City. And there was a son, too; a son who would inherit the 6X6 and the Oasis. And Dave had thought he was the only living relative of Peter Morgan.
Dave had been married. It had been so long ago that he could hardly remember what the woman looked like. But their nuptial bliss didn’t last long. Dave was too wild. He remembered that Peter had remonstrated with him, tried to get him to straighten up, but it was no use. Anyway, it was none of Pete’s business, he had decided. And one morning, when he awoke from a drunken spree, the woman was gone.
He wondered what had caused Pete and his wife to separate. As he stood there, thinking over the situation, Peter Morgan rode into town with his three men, the sheriff and deputy, and the body of Ben Leach.
Their arrival caused plenty of excitement in Mesa City. A crowd gathered quickly around the livery-stable, where Lem Sheeley had hired a vehicle in which to take the body to the coroner at Cañonville. Indignation ran high when the crowd heard that Leach had been killed by Long Lane, and a number volunteered to form a posse.
But Lem Sheeley, the sheriff, was deaf to their offers.