The Desert Moon Mystery by Kay Cleaver Strahan

It was three years after Mrs. Ricker came to the ranch, bringing John and Martha, that Hubert Hand put in his appearance. He had got Mr. Indian Chat Chin, as everybody called him, to bring him up from Rattail in his old surrey. Hubert Hand was something of a dude in those days, though he has well outgrown it since, and I remember yet how comical he looked, sitting up there so stiff and fine in his light gray overcoat and gray Fedora hat, with that big Roman nose of his protruding out and up, disdainfully, above his little moustache, and apparently above all consciousness of dirty old Mr. Indian Chat Chin and the rattle-trap rig.

Mr. Indian Chat Chin stopped his old nag at the entrance to the driveway, and Hubert Hand climbed carefully down and came up the road, swinging a walking cane like he was leading a parade.

Sam and I, as was our custom, went walking down to meet him.

He took off his hat to me, and said to Sam, "I wish to see the owner of this ranch."

"Nobody ever mistook me for a fairy before," Sam said. "But go ahead. Your first wish is granted. What are the other two?"

Hubert Hand got out his card then. Besides his name it had "Clover-blossom Creamery," and the San Francisco address printed on it.

"Now, Mr. Stanley," Hubert Hand went on, after the embarrassing minute of general introductions, "I am going to be honest with you -- "

"Hold on, stranger," Sam interrupted, "you're not. You are going to be as dishonest as heck. Otherwise, you wouldn't bother to tell me you were going to be honest. Go ahead."

Hubert Hand laughed, but he didn't like it. He went ahead, though, and explained that he had an up-and-coming creamery business in San Francisco, but that his physician had told him that he had to live in a high, dry climate with plenty of sunshine and no fog. He had, after inquiries and investigations, decided that the Desert Moon Ranch, altitude seven thousand feet, sunshine three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, to say nothing of the marvelous view of the Garnet Mountains, the hunting, the fishing, and the pure snow water, would fill all his requirements.

"Thanks," Sam said. "When I get ready to start a Gold Cure Sanatorium, I'll drop you a line."

"You won't do business, then? " Hubert Hand questioned.

"I hadn't heard anything about doing business," Sam said.

Hubert Hand's proposition was that he start a creamery, on the Desert Moon Ranch, and supply the valley with ice-cream, butter, and other dairy products. Sam had the ranch, the cows, and the big ice plant. Mr. Hubert Hand had the knowledge and the equipment. They could divide the profits.

Next to sheep men, I guess there is nothing that cow men hold in lower contempt than they hold dairy farms. Sam was too much disgusted to swear very long.

"But, do you realize, Mr. Stanley," Hubert Hand insisted, "that this entire valley has to depend on Salt Lake City, or on Reno, for its dairy products?"

"Listen, stranger," Sam said. "I wouldn't turn the Desert Moon into a place to slop milk around in if the entire valley had to depend on Hong Kong, China, for its ice-cream cones. Forget it, and come in now and have some supper."

To my knowledge, Hubert Hand, from that day to this, has never again mentioned, on the Desert Moon, anything that had to do with creameries. Neither, from that day to this, has he been off the ranch for more than a couple of weeks at a time.

"By the way," he began, trying to make it sound unimportant, when we had finished supper, "I heard, in Telko, that you were something of a chess player."

"I am, when I can get a game," Sam said. "But chess players, in these parts, are as scarce as hen's teeth. My neighbor, thirty miles east of here, and I used to play regular, two nights a week. But the son of a gun struck it rich, and like most loyal Native Sons of this state, he moved to California to spend his money. I'm teaching my boy, John-but he is just a kid. Here, lately, about all I've done is work out the puzzles by myself."

"I play a little," Hubert Hand produced, right modestly.