Connie and Enid, still somewhat dazed by what had happened, followed the two men. Barrows compelled the foreman to ride ahead of him down the trail while he kept him covered. The girls had a dozen questions which they wished to ask, but the detective seemed in no mood for explanations. He promised them he would return to Rainbow Ranch just as soon as he had delivered his prisoner to the sheriff at Red Gulch.
“I’m hopelessly mixed now,” Connie confided to Enid after they had parted company with the detective. “To think that I believed Jim Barrows might have been the one who robbed me of my money!”
“I don’t wonder you arrived at such a conclusion,” Enid replied after she had heard of the various evidence which had come into her friend’s possession. “So many things aren’t explained even now.”
But the girls did not have long to wait until all of their questions were answered. By the time they had changed into dry clothing and refreshed themselves with breakfast, Jim Barrows returned to the ranch.
“I’ll start at the beginning,” he declared. “First of all my name isn’t Jim Barrows. Instead it is Jim Ragon.”
“So that accounts for the initialed handkerchief which I picked up,” Connie commented.
“Yes, and I suppose you’ve guessed that I came here for the deliberate purpose of getting a job. I had been tipped off that Blakeman might be the man I was after.”
“You weren’t sick at all that day I found you on the trail?”
“I’m afraid I was playing possum. I thought I might appeal to your sympathy if you thought I was down and out. So I waited for you on the trail. It was a mean advantage to take, but it did serve my purpose. You were kind enough to give me a job.”
“Blakeman was suspicious of you from the very first.”