"Not likely," returned Clancy, swallowing a mouthful of sandwich. As he was about to take another bite, he had a thought that caused him to look up quickly. "Unless," he added. "Blunt and his friends did the looting. They came this way during the afternoon. They're not here now. Where are they?"
Frank shook his head.
"You might just as well ask where Porter is, or the prof," said he. "It's hopeless to try to keep track of Barzy Blunt, or to figure out from what he's done, what he's going to do next. From what McGurvin said, I thought Blunt had come here with some of his friends. Maybe he did. Possibly he collected the professor's goods and chattels and rode off with them. It isn't likely, though. Cow-punchers wouldn't be apt to do all that freighting on horseback. Would they take the trouble to balance a cot across one of their horses and ride away with it? Or the professor's trunk? I guess Blunt and his friends wouldn't have much use for the professor's plunder; so it's a fair surmise they didn't take it. Some one else did, that's evident. The testimony all points to the professor himself."
"He left Gold Hill to come to Happenchance," remarked Chancy. "Why didn't he tell us about it? It couldn't have been such an awful secret he had to keep it to himself."
"It's a deuce of a hard thing to figure out," said Merry. "I don't think we ever will understand it until Borrodaile bobs up and clears away the mystery himself. I've a hunch that Blunt is the key to this riddle of the professor's whereabouts. The Wonder may be somewhere around—that is, if McGurvin wasn't lying."
"You can bank on it, Chip, that a robber like McGurvin wouldn't tell the truth if it was to his interest to tell something else."
"He said he didn't know Nick Porter, a man who has been roaming these deserts all his life. If that's the truth, it's remarkable."
"Now you're getting back to Porter again. I thought we had agreed to let him go, and pin our faith to Barzy Blunt."
"Blunt, I think, is our best bet. I merely rang in Porter to give you my estimate of McGurvin's truthfulness. Porter couldn't have been at the McGurvin place, or we'd have found his horse."
"That's so." Clancy yawned. "I move we stay here all night and knock around a little in the morning. A good deal of the night has gone, anyway, and I guess we can stick out the rest of it in Happenchance. What do you say?"