An entire side of the square was occupied by a long, one-story adobe structure.  This was the Governor’s Palace.  For three hundred years it had been the seat of turbulent and tragic history.  Its solid walls had withstood many a siege and had stifled the cries of dozens of tortured prisoners.  The mail-clad Spanish explorers Penelosa and De Salivar had from here set out across the desert on their search for gold and glory.  In one of its rooms the last Mexican governor had dictated his defiance to General Kearny just before the Stars and Stripes fluttered from its flagpole.  The Spaniard, the Indian, the Mexican, and the American in turn had written here in action the romance of the Southwest.

The little man was of the outdoors.  His soft gray creased hat, the sun-tan on his face and neck, the direct steadiness of the blue eyes with the fine lines at the corners, were evidence enough even if he had not carried in the wrinkles of his corduroy suit about seven pounds of white powdered New Mexico.

He strolled down the sidewalk in front of the Palace, the while he chewed tobacco absent-mindedly.  There was something very much on his mind, so that it was by chance alone that his eye lit on a new tin sign tacked to the wall.  He squinted at it incredulously.  His mind digested the information it contained while his jaws worked steadily.

The sign read:—­

    DESPACHO

      De

    Royal Beaudry, LICENDIADO.

For those who preferred another language, a second announcement appeared below the first:—­

    Royal Beaudry.

    Attorney at law.

“Sure, and it must be the boy himself,” said the little man aloud.

He opened the door and walked in.

A young man sat reading with his heels crossed on the top of a desk.  A large calf-bound volume was open before him, but the book in the hands of the youth looked less formidable.  It bore the title, “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.”  The budding lawyer flashed a startled glance at his caller and slid Dr. Watson’s hero into an open drawer.

The visitor grinned and remarked with a just perceptible Irish accent:  “’Tis a good book.  I’ve read it myself.”

The embryo Blackstone blushed.  “Say, are you a client?” he asked.

“No-o.”

“Gee!  I was afraid you were my first.  I like your looks.  I’d hate for you to have the bad luck to get me for your lawyer.”  He laughed, boyishly.  There was a very engaging quality about his candor.

The Irishman shot an abrupt question at him.  “Are you John Beaudry’s son—­him that was fighting sheriff of Washington County twenty years ago?”

A hint of apprehension flickered into the eyes of the young man.  “Yes,” he said.

“Your father was a gr-reat man, the gamest officer that ever the Big Creek country saw.  Me name is Patrick Ryan.”