Lee turned a grateful glance upon him. “You must be right. I don’t believe Mr. Cavanagh would deceive any one.”
“Well, we’ll soon know the truth,” said Dalton, “for I’m going up there. If the ranger has been exposed, he must not be left alone.”
“He ain’t alone,” declared the sheriff. “Tom ’phoned me that he had an assistant.”
“Swenson, I suppose,” said Redfield, who entered at this moment. “Swenson is his assistant.”
“I didn’t see him myself,” Gregg continued, “but I understood the deputy to say that he was an old man.”
“Swenson is a young man,” corrected Redfield.
The sheriff insisted. “Tom said it was an old man—a stranger to him—tall, smooth-shaven, not very strong, he said—’peared to be a cook. He had helped nurse the dago, so Tom said.”
“That’s very curious,” mused Redfield. “There isn’t an old man in the service of this forest. There’s a mistake somewhere.”
“Well,” concluded Gregg, “that’s what he said. I thought at first it might be that old hobo Edwards, but this feller being in uniform and smooth-shaven—” His face changed, his voice deepened. “Say, by the Lord! I believe it was Edwards, and, furthermore, Edwards is the convict that Texas marshal was after the other day, and this man Cavanagh—your prize ranger—is harborin’ him.”
“What nonsense!” exclaimed Redfield.