“Why?” he asked.
This was all the encouragement Leslie needed.
“I’ll tell you, so far as I’ve got the hang of the thing; I thought you’d like to know. It seems Prescott has been away somewhere for a few days and should have got home last night. He came in on the train in the evening, and Harper drove him out and dropped him at Wandle’s trail; Prescott said he wanted to see the man. Well, he didn’t get home, and Svendsen, who’d been to Harper’s this morning, found Wandle gone and three of his horses missing. Then he found out from Watson, who stayed at the hotel last night, that Curtis rode in on a played-out horse before it was light, and kept the night operator busy for a while with the wires. Seems to me the thing has a curious look.”
For a moment or two nobody spoke. Muriel felt dismayed by the news, and she glanced at the others, trying to read their thoughts. Colston looked troubled, Gertrude’s face was hard and stamped with a kind of cruel satisfaction, Jernyngham was very grim.
“Is that all you know about the matter?” Jernyngham asked.
“I guess so,” Leslie answered. “Still, Svendsen did allow he thought he’d seen Stanton hanging about the homestead yesterday evening.”
“Thank you,” said Jernyngham with cold politeness. “I’ll want the team after dinner.”
Seeing no excuse for remaining, the rancher went out, and Jernyngham turned to the others. His brows were knitted and his eyes gleamed ominously.
“There’s no mystery about the matter; the man has gone for good,” he said. “In spite of the assurances they gave me, these fools of police have let him slip through their fingers. That he saw Wandle before he bolted proves collusion between them. It was a thing I half suspected, but Curtis, of course, did not agree with me.”
Muriel was recovering from the shock. Though things looked very bad, she could not believe that Prescott had run away. He had promised to call on Curtis and her confidence in him was unshaken.