Humphreys, Ray creator text utu 2025 monographic en 1 online resource : multiple file formats "One jump ahead by Ray Humphreys" is a Western short story with a crime‑mystery bent, written in the late 1920s. It follows a small‑town sheriff and his deputy as they investigate a mysterious box dug up beneath a bridge, a puzzle that stirs rumors of buried loot and raises the stakes amid local political pressures. Paroled rustler Manuel Perez comes to Sheriff Joe Cook seeking help just as old Grandpa McMeel reports two men digging under the Third Street bridge, a sight that Fred Speers hurriedly “confirms.” The officers find a trench and a dragged trail that vanishes in the creek, and later the sheriff discovers a wallet with a clipping about an old bank robbery—apparently proof the stolen loot was recovered. With the commissioners fretting over elections, the case seems hopeless, but Shorty McKay grows suspicious: Perez’s early release timing doesn’t match his story, the drag marks could hide a peg‑leg footprint, and Speers’s planted clipping points to a staged misdirection. Checking the newspaper files, Shorty finds the clipping freshly cut, then confronts Perez at his new ranch job and recovers a bundle of cash. The truth emerges: Perez and Speers dug up Perez’s own rustling proceeds buried years earlier, not bank loot. Shorty lays out the scheme, the money is seized, and the sheriff’s standing—and reelection prospects—are saved. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Release date is 2025-05-13 Roger Frank Originally published: New York: Street & Smith Corporation, 1929 Short stories Western stories Detective and mystery stories Sheriffs -- Fiction McKay, Shorty (Fictitious character) -- Fiction PS New York: Street & Smith Corporation, 1929 https://archive.org/details/western-story-magazine-v-088-n-03-1929-07-20-pp-111-112-135-136 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76082 https://archive.org/details/western-story-magazine-v-088-n-03-1929-07-20-pp-111-112-135-136 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76082 UtSlPG 260607 20260610134748.0 76082