"Very well; the task is painful, but it can't be shirked."
Challoner carefully outlined Clarke's theory of what had happened during the night attack, and Blake listened quietly.
"Of course," Challoner concluded, "the man had an obvious end to serve,
and I dare say he was capable of misrepresenting things to suit it.
I'll confess that I found the thought comforting; but I want the truth,
Dick. I must do what's right."
"Clarke once approached me about the matter, but he will never trouble either of us again. I helped to bury him up in the wilds."
"Dead!" exclaimed Challoner.
"Frozen. In fact, it was not his fault that we escaped his fate. He set a trap for us, intending that we should starve."
"But why?"
"His motive was obvious. There was a man with us whose farm and stock would, in the event of his death, fall into Clarke's hands; and it's clear that I was a serious obstacle in his way. Can't you see that he couldn't use his absurd story to bleed you unless I supported it?"
Challoner felt the force of this. He was a shrewd man, but just then he was too disturbed to reason closely and he failed to perceive that his nephew's refusal to confirm the story did not necessarily disprove it. That Clarke had thought it worth while to attempt his life bulked most largely in his uncle's eyes.
"He urged me to take some shares in a petroleum syndicate," he said.