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Show DESEBOT I m L CLEAVER. f;:f1le si i? ah an m mV' (OPYRISHTbyiUBLEDAYRANCOJIviC. W.N.U.SERVICE J when he find come. I thought, maybe, may-be, Sam was forgetting that side of the family, and that this mijjlit be a good time to remind him. "Is Canneziano planning to come on later, too, and rest?" 1 asked. "Just at present he is in San Qucn-tin, Qucn-tin, serving a three years' term. Danielle didn't say for what devilliy. nis term's up this summer. Poor little girls," Sam went on, "I reckon we haven't any idea of what they've been through, all these years." "I reckon not," I agreed. "But they aren't little girls any more. Seems queer to me, with all Ihe beauty their father was bragging about that neither of them has married. Twenty-four is getting along." "I'll bet," Sam answered, "it is because be-cause they have never had any decent opportunities. Considering the life that they've had to lead, and all, I think It speaks pretty well for them that they have come through straight and clean." Instead of asking birn how he knew that, I said, "You'd be willing, then, to have John marry one of them?" John, Sam's adopted son, was the apple of Sam's eye. He would have I the ranch, and Sam's fortune, other dependents provided for, when Sam died. Whether or not the girl he mar-i Lovuts of mystery stories und their numbers are legion will find a new sort of thrill, a new and fascinating interest, in following the strange sequence se-quence of events and trying to piece to'ether the clews presented In this unusual tale. These clews abound everywhere, ev-erywhere, yet none is definite enough to provide a logical basis a starting point Three murders and a suicide one ot them a lovely girl with a secret. Days and nights of suspense, danger, suspi- ( cion suspicion, falling by tne force ot circumstances, upon the innocent upon up-on every resident and visitor at a charming, hospitable old ranch house. The ranch wheie the events occur Is in Nevada, yet it is not a western story. ut the puzzling and exciting incidents inci-dents could have happened nowhere j else. The setting itself adds greatly to the mystery, lor into the perfectly created atmosphere of a western scene, deep intrigues, dark plottings and tbe must s: nis ter culminations are introduced, intro-duced, the effecting and concealment of which would have been impossible excepting ex-cepting in such an out-of-tlie-wav place. The story is at once a challenge and an adventure for the reader. There is a surprise in the personality of the detective employed a type that is T.holly new to crime stories and mystery mys-tery fiction in general. CHAPTER I The Cannezianos I knew, that evening in April, when Sam got home from Uattail and came stamping snow Into my kitchen, his good old red, white and blue face stretched long and wide in Its usual grin, that he had brought some bad know Is that Margarita never had a mite of love for him. She stayed with him, though, and acted decently enough for two years, until Dan Canneziano came to the ranch and got a job on it as a cowpuncher. It was during those two years that , Sam built this ranchhouse for her. Sam's lead and silver mine had just come in, and there was not anything, from Italian marble (iteplaees to teak-wood teak-wood floors, that was too grand for what Margarita called the Stanley mansion. She left it. all the elegance and the luxury, and she broke her marriage vows, for love of this wop cowpuncher. That, 1 guess, is fair and full enough description of Margarita Marga-rita Canneziano. I don't blame tier. 1 quit blaming folks for things a good many years ago when, after firing three Chinese cooks in six weeks, 1 decided that, if we were to live healthy and wholesome, whole-some, I'd have to take over the job of cooking ns well as housekeeping for the Desert Moon ranch, and set about it, and learned' to cook. In other words, when I became a creator myself, 1 got to know creations and so quit blaming all of them. If I forget to put the soda In the sour milk pancakers, it isn't their fault If they don't rise. They are as I made them. Margarita was as the Lord made her. He, I suppose, either bad His own good reasons for turning out such a mess, or else He was tired, or flustered, or maybe, was just experimenting experi-menting on the road to something bet- ..'- He Left Suddenly After Having Seen Sam and No One Else. news with him. "I had a letter today," he said, "from 'he Canneziano twins." I am like a lot of folks who say that they are not superstitious, who just happen to think that It Is bad luck to walk under a ladder. More than likely the shivery, creepy sensation I felt, viien Sam said that, was due to the cold he brought In with him, and was not due to the fact that those words of his were the forerunners for all of the grim mysteries and the tragedies trag-edies that made the Desert Moon ranch, before the end of July, a place of horror. "How much do they want?" I questioned. ques-tioned. "No, Mary ; they want to come here to live. Danielle wrote the letter. She says they want to come here and rest, indefinitely. She says she longs for it with all her soul, or something like that." "Danlelie," 1 said, "always was the best of the two. . You going to let them come, Sam?" "Anything else for me to do?" "Not a thing for you. There'd be Plenty of others. Those girls are no kin of yours. Let me see eight years old when they were here in 1909, makes them twenty-four years old now, according to my figures. Why a couple of women twins, aggregating ag-gregating forty-eight years, should decide de-cide to come here and rest their souls, st your expense, Is beyond me." "I have plenty." "So has Henry Ford. Why don't go rest their souls with him? They've got as much claim on him as H'ey have on you. None. Leave those tff's rest their souls right there tthere they are, Sam." 'No I don't know, Mary. I guess J'1' write them a letter and tell them come along. Lots of room." I didn't argue any more about It f twenty-five years I had been ''ousekeeper 0f the Desert Moon ranchhouse, and I had learned, during '"at time, that there was only one Sulct, concerning Sam, or the place, n which I could never hope to have anJ say-so. Trying to argue with J- about anything that had to do, la My way, with Margarita Ditsie, pen she was Margarita Ditsie Stanly, Stan-ly, or ivhen she was Margarita Ditsie wnuoziano, was about as sensible fs hoisting a chiffon parasol for pro-?ion pro-?ion in the midst of one of our evida mountain cloudbursts. Margarita Ditsie was of Frenchman French-man parentage; a dark-haired, 'S-evetj beauty. Her father kept a "mbling hole In Esmeralda county in ' early days. Her mother had run ay from a convent, after she had fwrae a nun t0 marry hm The had some of the nun, some of the ,'nilffny, and some of the gambling 0Use proprietor in her. It made a r combination. st'10n she was eighteen years old e came from Carson to visit Lily Per, over on the Three Bars ;", nbout Sixty iiies from ner0- met her there. She and Sam e married two weeks, later. She even n '0t yoi,nSr tlina Sam : but, the '!en' he wns tIie richest man In an fal'ey, with every unwedded .wom- , or a hundred miles around setting '"cap for nim bis l!Ct''er Mai"Sarita married him for tl,e Palth' or whether it was to spite to'm girls wll would have liked arr Mm, I don't know. All I 4 ter when He did it I should explain, 1 suppose, wishing wish-ing to be as honest as possible In spite of the fact that I aw writing a mystery mys-tery story, that Canneziano had a good education; he tnlked poetry, and played the violin. Margarita heard him playing, down in the outfit's quarters quar-ters one day, and had Sam Invite him up to the house to piny. She accompanied accom-panied him on the grand piano that Sam had bought for her. Before long, Dan Canneziano was spending a good part of his time at the ranchhouse. Sam, being nobody's fool, soon saw how the land lay; but he, according to his custom then and now, kept his mouth shut and his eyes open. Sure enough, one evening tbey tried to elope together. Sam went after them and brought them back. The three of them had about half an hour's talk together. Then Sam herded Canneziano down to the outfit's quarters and, I suppose, told the men to keep him there, for there he stayed until Sam was ready for him again. The next morning Sam started to the county seat. He reached there that evening. The following morning he got his divorce. He came back to the Desert Moon on the third morning, with his divorce and with a preacher. He sent for Canneziano, and stood by, while the preacher married Margarita Stanley to Daniel Canneziano, decent and regular, according to the laws of Nevada. There It should have ended. It didn't, because Sam never got over loving Margarita. So when, nine years later, she came back to the Desert Moon, with twin girls, Danielle and Gabrielle, and said that Canneziano had deserted her and the children Sam took them all right in. I don't know, yet, whether or not they took him In. Certainly he did not show much . surprise when, in - about ten days, Canneziano put in an appearance. Sam allowed him to get a good start with his threats, and then he took him across his knees and gave him a : sound spanking, and passed him over to Margarita to dry his tears, and washed his own bands and went ! fishing. '' That evening he had one of the men hitch up and take the whole kit and , caboodle of Cannezianos to Itnrtnil In time to catch the east-bound train. I :ara ashamed to say that Sam gave i them money. I don't know how much. A tidy sum, I'll be bound, for shortly after we heard that Canneziano had opened the finest gambling house south of the Mason and Dixon line, in New Orleans. Sam wanted to keep the children. He offered to adopt them. Margarita would not consider It. When Margarita died, In Franco, seven vears after she had paid us her blackmailing Visit, Sam, the ninny wrote to Canneziano and again oifered to adopt the girls and give them a good home on the Desert Moon. He cot a few insulting, Insinuating lines for an answer. Canneziano bad his own plans for his daughters, who had developed into rare beauties. Put if Sam was soft with the women wom-en he was not soft wifh Canneziano He had showed up bee, beaming and broke about three years ago. He Ivul 1 suddenly, after bavins s-en m and no one else, less N aming but quite as broke us he had been rled would be contented to live on the ranch, and help John carry it on and keep np Its traditions, making It one of the proudest spots In Nevada, was a mighty Important thing to Sam. He waited so long before answering my question that I was sure I had hit the nail on the head. "John," he finally said, "is old enough to take care of himself." With that he turned and went out of my kitchen, not giving me a chance to say that, though I had lived through fifty-six years, I had never yet seen a man at the age he had just mentioned. men-tioned. I knew that If these Canneziano Can-neziano girls came to the Desert Moon, they would bring trouble with them. I was right. A merciful Providence Provi-dence be thanked that, for a time at least, the knowledge of how terribly ter-ribly right I was, was spared me. I am not an admirer of men. Looking Look-ing at most any man, I find myself thinking what a pity it was he had to grow up, since as a little, helpless child he would have made a complete! success. Sam Stanley Is different There Is some of the child left in Sam, just as there Is, I think, In any good man or woman a little seasoning of simplicity, sim-plicity, really, Is all it amounts to but there Is a quality about Sam that makes a person feel that he set out, early In life, to follow the recipe for being a man, and that he has made a thorough job of It Why he, as a young man, with a pretty fair education and a tidy sum of money left him by his father, who had been a well-thought-of lawyer In Massachusetts, should come out here to Nevada, take up his homestead land, and settle content for the rest of his life, has always been more or less of a mystery to me, unless yon take Sam's explanation of It. He says thnt, when his father died, It left him without a relative, whom he knew of, in the world, ne was twenty years old, and he owned a set of roving toes and an imagination. So he went to California, seeking romance ro-mance and gold. Finding neither, he came Qown here to Nevada. He staked out his hundred and sixty acres with Boulder creek tumbling and roaring through them. He built his cabin. He hired help, and built fences, and dug ditches, and planted crops, and bought stock. He bought more land. He hired more help, dug more ditches, planted bigger crops, bought more stock. He has been do-In" do-In" that regularly ever since. And, of cour he located the lead and silver mine, on his prorerty, that made him millions if It made him a cent, before It played out. But In spue of the money that "Old Lady Luck, ns he called his mine, made for him, Sam never gave his heart to it It was the Desert Moon ranch that 1.5 loved, and the money he made from It that he was proud of. That was why ,vl,cn the honor of the ranch went under during those terrible we-Ks last summer. Sam all but went under with It. After Maruarita left the i-hicc .rom her visit of WO. taking iho tw:ns Willi her, Pain went around for a week or two. with bis bond c-cUeu to one side ns If he was listening ior (To Be Continued) |