More from Lauran Paine's Chapter One: The Peralta Country!

"Peralta was south of Albuquerque on the trade route from Chihuahua State in Mexico northward to the gringo towns of New Mexico.

"It was also the traditional lying - over place for arrieros with their long pack trains, and for wagoneers (almost invariably norteamericanos) who traded and freighted as far northeast as Missiouri.

"The mostly desert country had loose soil and miles of candid hostility.

"Its trees had hooks, its bushes had thorns, its creatures had venom, its sun was pitiless, and its water was often unpalatable.

"What little water there was lay hidtden in rocky places or deep in patches of nearly impenetrable thornpin, usually far from roadways.

"To the natives with their meager squash, maize, and gourd patches, their thick - walled, plain but functional jacals of solid mud, the deser was a form of purgatory.

"To the Mexican arrieros with tiny bells on theri trousers, huge sombrero hats, strings of small but incredibly tough Mexican mules, it was a continuation of the native soil, despite Mexico having lost it in a savage war.

"The common language was Spanish: the people were Mexican, had been for generations; their towns were Spanish - Mexican. "

Marshal Frank Butler !!

"They recognized Frank Butler's authority and, after generations of abuse, appreciated his evenhanded enforcement.

"It all started when a drunken arriero came up from Mexico, along with eleven other mule - train men.

"He tried to make love to a woman in Mex - town whose husband had been gone a month on a wild - horse hunt.

"The woman struck the arriero.

"One of the arrieros fired his pistol, wounding a native.

"It was this gunshot that brought Marshal Butler in a lope with a sawed - off shotgun in his hands.

"The packer who had shot the native made the mistake of firing at Butler.

"He missed, and Frank Butler blew him to mincemeat from a distance of sixty feet."

AND THEN IT HAPPENS!

"Two days later, in an exact reenactment of legend, a man attired in black appeared astride a big black horse, which he walked through Mex - town to the mud house of the woman with the discolored eye.

"He tossed gold coins through a glassless window and road away.

"Frank heard about this only when he went up to Jess Hobart's saloon.

"There were two gold coins in his hand.

"He smiled at Marshal Butler's blank expression.

"Yeah. El Cajonero." The bartender tells him!

"Butler leaned on the bartop. Last night?

"Yep. El Cajonero came in the night and tossed money to the woman who got hit in the eye..."

And this story just gets better and better!!

That's right!!