me the sheriff's posse

FOREWORD

THE BELLS

He who has not heard the bells of San Juan has a journey yet to make.
He who has not set foot upon the dusty road which is the one street of
San Juan, at times the most silent and deserted of thoroughfares, at
other times a mad and turbulent lane between sun-dried adobe walls, may
yet learn something of man and his hopes, desires, fears and ruder
passions from a pin-point upon the great southwestern map.

The street runs due north and south, pointing like a compass to the
flat gray desert in the one direction, and in the other to the broken
hills swept up into the San Juan mountains. At the northern end, that
is toward the more inviting mountains, is the old Mission. To right
and left of the whitewashed corridors in a straggling garden of
pear-trees and olives and yellow roses are two rude arches made of
seasoned cedar. From the top cross-beam of each hang three bells.

They have their history, these bells of San Juan, and the biggest with
its deep, mellow voice, the smallest with its golden chimes, seem to be
chanting it when they ring. Each swinging tongue has its tale to tell,
a tale of old Spain, of Spanish galleons and Spanish gentlemen
adventurers, of gentle-voiced priests and sombre-eyed Indians, of
conquest, revolt, intrigue, and sudden death. When a baby is born in
San Juan, a rarer occurrence than a strong man's death, the littlest of
the bells upon the western arch laughs while it calls to all to
hearken; when a man is killed, the angry-toned bell pendant from the
eastern arch shouts out the word to go billowing across the stretches
of sage and greasewood and gama-grass; if one of the later-day frame
buildings bursts into flame, Ignacio Chavez warns the town with a
strident clamor, tugging frantically; be it wedding or discovery of
gold or returns from the county elections, the bell-ringer cunningly
makes the bells talk.

Out on the desert a man might stop and listen, forming his surmise as
the sounds surged to meet him through the heat and silence. He might
smile, if he knew San Juan, as he caught the jubilant message tapped
swiftly out of the bronze bell which had come, men said, with Coronado;
he might sigh at the lugubrious, slow-swelling voice of the big bell
which had come hitherward long ago with the retinue of Marco de Niza,
wondering what old friend or enemy, perchance, had at last closed his
ears to all of Ignacio Chavez's music. Or,