With this in mind, Garry sketched briefly the main points in the matter that brought them back to Hobart and its vicinity.
“M-m-m, now, that requires considerable thought,” said the old woodsman. “This matter of the mail robbery is somethin’ new to me. Guess naturally the postoffice kept mighty quiet about that. ’Course I know about the letters, saw one of them. That’s something I’d put right at Lafe Green’s door, and where he is, there’s the halfbreed to consider also. Lafe has always had it in for Everett, and especially since the smugglin’ business; for everyone round here knows that you chaps were in on it, and your bein’ friendly with Mr. Everett has given rise to pretty good guesses that he helped you out. That was to be expected, his having been in the Customs service so long. But this other matter, I can’t say anything about till I think it over.”
“We have had some idea that someone along the line in the postoffices might have helped out. Otherwise this could not have been done unless the mail carriers were held up at the point of a gun and robbed,” said Garry. “What about Postmaster Denton?”
“Honest as the day is long,” promptly returned the gum hunter. “I’d trust him with anythin’ I have, and there ain’t a soul in Hobart that wouldn’t do the same thing.”
“That seems to let him out, then,” said Garry. “Now are we crazy and stretching things when we figure that Green may have something to do with this?”
“Yep, seems to be stretching it a little bit, but I wouldn’t put it past him. Let me light up and think this out for a minute.”
So saying, George Washington Dudley—for that was the name of the hunter—although he insisted that his friends call him “Dud,” hauled out an old pipe and was soon puffing ruminatively away at it.
“If this thing was done with the help of any of the postoffice men, it ought not to be a hard matter to trace it down,” suggested Garry. “How about the man who delivers the mail with the flivver to Coldenham when the pulp mill owner’s private road isn’t running?”
“He’s all right, cousin o’ mine; bank on his being honest,” returned Dud.
He was silent a minute and then burst out: