For half an hour they combed the charred underbrush but without success and they met on the far side of the timber lot to discuss further plans.
“Slim pickings,” commented the colonel. “I haven’t found enough to hang on a toothpick.”
“About all I’ve got is an idea,” said Tim as he started toward an old stream bed which cut through the valley. The colonel and Ralph, their curiosity aroused, followed the flying reporter.
The creek which ran through the valley had changed its channel a number of times and its old courses were filled with rubbish which the wind had deposited. It was in these old creek beds that Tim resumed his search. He had not been hunting five minutes when his cry brought the colonel and Ralph to his side.
Below them, hidden in the underbrush of the old channel, they saw half a dozen large tin containers.
“That’s how your fire was started,” said Tim. “Someone doused the timber with a generous supply of crude oil and how that stuff does burn.”
They slid down the bank of the old creek bed and Tim and Ralph pulled one of the containers out where they could get a better view.
“Careful how you handle those,” warned Colonel Searle, “and don’t move more than one or two. I’ll have a fingerprint expert out here to look them over. We may find a valuable story in the fingerprints if the chaps who started the fire got careless.”
“They’re not the type to overlook any clues,” said Tim.
“Not as a rule,” conceded the colonel, “but you must remember they wouldn’t have figured in the state police being in on this so soon. Believe me, it was a clever stunt of theirs setting fire to the woods and using that as a ruse to stop the mail. If it hadn’t been for the determination of engineer Henshaw to get his train through on the new schedule on time, we’d have had something to really worry about this morning. If it had been a large gang they would have attempted to stop you anyway so it must have been a small, brainy outfit. Just the type of fellows the Sky Hawk used to have in his outfit.”