“Your guide is John Caribou,” Parker answered. “I thought him all right, but he was seen to shoot a deer only day before yesterday. He is wanted, too.”
“Your informer was mistaken in that,” Merry very positively declared.
Diamond was bewildered. Parker’s statement was a puzzler and did not coincide with his idea that the guide had played into that officer’s hands. He knew Caribou did not shoot either the deer or the moose.
“You must be lying, that’s all,” he thought, looking the warden inquiringly in the eyes.
“Where are we to be taken?” asked Browning.
“County seat,” said Parker. “I’ll leave a man with your things here.”
“You haven’t given me a chance to explain how those heads happen to be here,” said Merriwell. “After that you may not want to hold us.”
Then he proceeded to tell why they had been brought into camp.
While making these explanations, Merry was so struck by the improbability of the account that he began to doubt if he would believe it himself, if he were in the game warden’s position. The discovery of the moose head by Hans would not have been an unlikely thing, but when to that was added the statement of why the deer head had been brought in, the entire narrative seemed to take on a fishy odor.