“Because it is not the truth,” Darrel answered, with spirit.
“Did you know the combination of the safe, Darrel?” asked Frank.
“Yes—that is, if it hasn’t been changed during the past year.”
“It hasn’t,” put in the colonel. “That was my fault, I suppose.”
“Then, three of you knew the combination,” went on Frank, “yourself, colonel, and Darrel and Lenning.”
“That is the way of it.”
The crowd on the mesa was listening with absorbed attention to the talk which was going forward over the hapless head of the “boy from Nowhere.” Nearly all, perhaps, felt that Darrel’s admission that he had gone to the house for his running suit was a trivial excuse to cover a design on the safe. Dark looks were thrown at Darrel, and only here and there was anything bordering on sympathy shown for him.
“Now,” said Frank, keeping the points he wanted to make well in mind and working toward them with all the skill he could muster, “you said, colonel, that Lenning and his camping party left Gold Hill three days ago?”
“Yes.”
“Less than half a day would be required to make the trip from Gold Hill to Tinaja Wells, for a mounted party with pack animals. How does it happen, then, that the Gold Hillers only reached the Wells yesterday afternoon?”