“How long, then, before you set out for home?”
“A few weeks—six weeks, perhaps.”
“My father had considerable money at the time you left him, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me how much?”
“I don’t see what good it would do you to know—you are not likely to get the money.”
“I suppose not, sir; but it was his money that probably tempted the man who wickedly murdered him.”
Squire Simpson seemed very ill at ease, as if, instead of being questioned by a boy, he were in the witness-box.
“Yes,” said he, “I suppose your father was murdered for his money. How much did he have? Well, probably five thousand dollars, more or less. I had considerably more, having met with greater luck than he.”
“At what place did you leave father, Squire Simpson?”