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for a number of years. In advanced age and feeble health, Colonel Fritz went back to his boyhood home in Germany, where he died, leaving a will and an insurance policy for $10,000, both of which he had entrusted for safe keeping to his old friend Murphy. Aside from his ranch and stock in Bonito Cañon, the insurance policy which had been bequeathed to his sister, Mrs. Fred Scholland, constituted the principal asset of Colonel Fritz's estate.

Upon his death, Charles Fritz, his brother, set about to wind up Colonel Fritz's affairs. But when he sought to obtain the will and insurance policy, Murphy refused to surrender either and justified his refusal on the grounds that Colonel Fritz had died owing him a large sum of money. No proof of such a debt was ever produced but Murphy declared the will contained a provision that he be reimbursed from the insurance. Murphy, it is said, kept the will in a tin can concealed in a secret crypt in the walls of his store in Lincoln, as there were few safes in the country at that time, either for private or public funds. Whether there was such a provision in the will or not never was publicly known, as the will never was probated and Murphy was charged with having destroyed it. As for the insurance policy, the thrifty Murphy had hypothecated it with Spiegelberg Brothers, merchants of Santa Fé, for merchandise billed at $900.

McSween, employed by Charles Fritz and Mrs. Scholland as their lawyers, undertook the collection of the insurance. He paid the $900 out of his own pocket to the Spiegelbergs to square Murphy's account and, gaining possession of the policy, cashed it in full on a trip to the East and deposited the $10,000 in his own name in a bank in St. Louis. Murphy, it is said, still owed a considerable sum of money to McSween for legal services in the past.