D. after his name? The incident, all but forgotten, remained
prominently in her mind, soon to assume a position of transcendent
importance.
And then, one after the other, here and there throughout the county
came fresh crimes which not only set men talking angrily but which drew
the eyes of the State and then of the neighboring States upon this
corner of the world. Newspapers in the cities commented variously,
most of them sweepingly condemning the county's sheriff for a
figurehead and a boy who should never have been given a man's place in
the sun. New faces were seen in San Juan, in Las Estrellas, Las
Palmas, Pozo, everywhere, and men said that the undesirable citizens of
the whole Southwest were flocking here where they might reap with
others of their ilk and go scot free. Naturally, the Casa Blanca
became headquarters for a large percentage of the newcomers.
"The condition in and about San Juan," commented one of the most
reputable and generally conservative of the attacking dailies, "has
become acute, unprecedented for this time in our development. The
community has become the asylum of the lawless. The authorities have
shown themselves utterly unable to cope with the situation. A
well-known figure of the desert town who long ago should have gone to
the gallows is daily growing bolder, attaching to himself the wildest
of the insurging element, and is commonly looked upon as a crime
dictator.
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