“I do not think him capable of taking anything by stealth,” was the quick reply. “But what is this about? Why don’t you answer my question? Have the films you took at the campfire last evening been stolen?”
“They’re gone,” was the answer. “It may be a joke, but they’re gone, all right. You say you didn’t take ’em, and Case says he didn’t, so what is there to think except—”
“I don’t believe Gran took them,” Clay hastened to say. “I don’t think he is that kind of a boy. Besides, he has had no opportunity, that I can see. He couldn’t have taken them in the night without waking some of us. I’m not a heavy sleeper, you know.”
“Did you hear the pistol shot in the night?” asked Alex with a suspicion that Clay had slept sounder than he knew. “Come, now, did you?”
“I did not,” was the quick reply. “What time was it?”
“And you say that you would have heard the boy if he had opened the kodak and taken out the films! Well, they are gone! Either he took them, or some one took them while walking in his sleep, or some one sneaked in during the night and stole them.”
“If any outsider had entered the cabin to get them,” Clay considered, “he wouldn’t have opened the kodak in there and left it. He would have made off the minute he got his hands on it, and opened it somewhere else? Don’t you think that is right?”
“Sure I do,” replied Alex the frown on his face growing steadily. “Sure I do. Then, that puts it up to this Chester person, doesn’t it?”
“But why should he steal them? Tell me that! And tell me another thing, while your are at it. What was the shooting in the night?”
Alex again explained, in as few words as possible, just what had taken place in the night. Clay saw more in the occurrence than Case had seen and said so. He was plainly apprehensive of coming trouble.