“I’ve been wondering if Nick Jasniff wasn’t connected with this affair,” answered Dave.
“Nick Jasniff!” exclaimed Oliver Wadsworth. “You mean the fellow I helped to put in prison?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think he could have had anything to do with it?”
“I’ll tell you,” answered our hero. And thereupon he related how he and Roger had first seen Nick Jasniff in the vicinity of the construction camp, and how, later on, he had been instrumental in having Jasniff sent away from the camp, and then how he had met the rascal on the road, had a fight, and lost the two letters and the contents of his pocketbook.
“I ought to have written about this, but I didn’t want to worry you folks too much,” he concluded.
“Dave, you may have struck the truth!” burst out Mr. Wadsworth excitedly. “It would be just like that rascal to do such a thing as this. And besides that, you must remember one thing—Jasniff was not pardoned.”
“Not pardoned!” burst out our hero and Roger simultaneously.
“No, he was not pardoned,” answered the jewelry manufacturer. “His case came up before the Board of Pardons, and after a hearing they recommended a pardon for him to the governor. But before the governor signed the order to let him go, Jasniff made his escape from the prison and ran away. Then, of course, the recommendation for a pardon was torn up and thrown in the waste-basket; so if the fellow is ever captured he can go back to prison and serve his term over again.”