"But why should Harry take up with him?" Pence's tone was savage.
"You should know, if Kirby is so thick with the aborigine. Look as though they might be brothers in the same boat, belong to the same lodge, as it were. Kirby may be heap big Injun, too," Kingdon laughed lightly.
"Oh, he's an Indian all right," gloomily agreed Horace Pence, "but not Joe Bootleg's kind. I never knew Harry to do a really mean thing. He's too white a fellow, I believe, to lend himself to a job like that."
Kingdon had it on his tongue to suggest that he did not think Pence the best judge of what was "white" in a chap's character, but he refrained.
"It seems to me," he stated, "that whoever tried to roll the bowlder the first time couldn't make it. One chap wasn't heavy enough on the end of the lever; but two——"
"I won't believe it!" cried Horace suddenly. "I've known Harry Kirby since he was a little shaver."
"Keep your opinion of him, then, till you find out you're wrong," advised Kingdon. "The truth is bound to come to the surface. You can't keep a cork under water. Murder will out, and that came near being murder if the rock was actually started by human means. Now, let's talk about the weather. Do you think it's going to rain or snow?"
His seriousness tossed aside, Rex was his usual sunny, light-hearted self. But Horace remained grim and thoughtful throughout the return trip.
CHAPTER XXVII.
VISITORS.