"Well," said Paul, slowly, "you remember the man who drove past when we were at the side of the road that day, and whose wheel marks we saw all the way up here? That was the fellow. I had a good look at him. His companion called him Hank!"
"Oh! my, then it is really true!" ejaculated Joe Clausin, apparently taken quite off his guard by this declaration on the part of the patrol leader.
Paul turned upon him then and there, and looked serious.
"Joe," he said, firmly yet kindly, "once you refused to tell me what you knew or suspected about this man. I hope you won't try to bluff us off again, now that you know he's here, and everything looks as if he might be the one who took your father's valuable papers."
As he spoke Paul stooped and picked something up that had attracted his eye. It had been lying among quite a quantity of clothing and other things. Probably these had been secured in various raids on clotheslines, where the good people of the farming community were airing Winter
garments before putting them away in camphor in the chest.
"Look here, Joe, what do you call this?" Paul went on.
Joe could hardly speak, he was so excited.
"It's the tin box that my dad used to keep those papers in! Oh! Paul look inside and see if they're there!" he exclaimed, trembling with eagerness as he laid a hand on the arm of the patrol leader.
But Paul believed that his friend was doomed to disappointment, even before he opened the strange little tin box, which had been stolen from the store of the feed keeper in Stanhope.