Holton made a despairing gesture with his hands.
“He’s gone back to Carleton’s,” he exclaimed. “By George! He’s given me the slip! If I’m not the worst kind of a lunkhead!”
“I reckon not,” Brad put in quickly. “He came back again in about thirty minutes.”
“Are you sure?” Holton asked doubtfully.
“Yep; we saw it plain. He must have gone twelve or fifteen miles, and then we saw him flash some lights like signals. Pretty quick after they stopped the machine came back again to the place where it started from.”
“And where was that?” the officer asked eagerly. “Say, Jack, haven’t you any idea at all who it belongs to?”
“We thought it was Randolph,” Buckhart returned promptly. “He’s the fellow that lives in that stone house with barred windows and a steel door.”
“Never heard of him,” Holton said quickly. “I’m a stranger here, you know. It sounds good, though. How do you get to it?”
“Go down to Bonnet Trail and walk toward Denver,” the Texan answered. “In about half a mile you come to a narrow road on your right. Randolph’s place is at the end of that road, not more than a quarter of a mile——”
He stopped abruptly as his eyes fell on Dick’s face. It was calm and impassive, but there must have been something there which made the big Westerner think that perhaps he had been saying too much. He hesitated for a moment and then went on rather lamely: