"That's the plan I've been working on, and that's what these legal papers covered. Now it seems this new witness makes it all look like an ice cream cone on a hot day. Unless the money is paid inside of a week Wardell will forfeit all his stock to Uncle Ezra. Oh, it's a cute game, all right, and there doesn't seem to be any way to beat it," said Dick, bitterly.
"Maybe if we hurried into San Francisco," suggested Paul, "and saw this witness, we could explain things to him, and ask him to hold off until Mr. Wardell could get here."
"No chance of that," said Dick. "Wardell is in South America—the land knows where. We can't reach him in time."
"But if we could find this witness," persisted Paul.
"He's disappeared, so this newspaper article says," remarked Dick. "That's another funny part of it. It looks like a hold-off game, spiriting the witness away in that fashion, and yet what can we do? Even if we got to 'Frisco before the end of the week, which we could easily do, by abandoning the car and taking a train, what good would it do? We couldn't offset the testimony of this witness."
"It does look as though we were up against it," assented Paul.
"Good and hard," agreed Dick.
"Well, let's have grub," suggested Innis, practically. "It's almost ready. And maybe after supper we'll find a way out."
But even after the meal, eaten amid the silence of the salt desert, their gloomy thoughts were not dispersed. They sat about, moody and quiet, until Paul, with a sarcastic exclamation, cried out:
"Say, this is the limit. Let's do a song and dance, or something like that."