"Don't you want me to go with you?" questioned the old farmer quickly.
"No. I prefer to interview them alone."
"All right then, I'll stay here. But don't be too long, 'cause I want to drive down to the town an' git Bill Pixley, the chief o' police, or one of his men."
"I don't think you'll need any police, Mr. Lacy. I think we'll be able to fix this matter up to your entire satisfaction," answered Colonel Colby; and then left the office and made his way along the corridors to the guardroom.
His coming was a great relief to Jack and Fred, for they felt that in Colonel Colby they had a real friend. Yet they were much troubled, for they realized that the case looked black against them.
"Now tell me everything you know. Don't hold back a single item," said the colonel, as he seated himself on one of the stools.
Thereupon both cadets related their story in detail—how they had gone out with Frank Newberry and the others, how the two parties had become separated, and how they had lost their way, camped out over night, and finally found the woods road leading down to the Lacy farm, and then how Elias Lacy and his hired man had held them up and threatened them with arrest.
"And you do not know a single thing about the shooting of the cows?" questioned the colonel, eyeing them sternly.
"Not a thing, sir," responded Jack, promptly.
"We don't know anything more about those cows than you do, sir," added Fred, vehemently. "We weren't anywhere near his place when they were shot."