“Ah, but what would any one gain by putting him out of the way——”
Frank Reade, Jr., paused. He gazed steadily at his father. Much passed between them in that glance.
“His fortune is a large one,” put in the senior Reade, “the right to inherit would furnish the best motive. There is but one heir, and he is a nephew, Artemas Cliff, who is a stockman, somewhere in the Far West. It could not be him.”
“Could not?” Frank Reade, Jr., sat down and dropped into a brown study. After a time he aroused.
“I am interested in this case,” he declared. “And my Steam Man is at the disposal of justice at any time. But you spoke of the prairies. Is there a clew in the West?”
“The only clew possible to obtain at present,” declared Mr. Reade, Sr. “You see detectives tracked two suspicious men to Kansas. There they lost track of them. Everybody believes that they were the assassins.”
“Well, I believe it,” cried Frank Reade, Jr., with impulse. “I can see but one logical explanation of this matter. Either Artemas Cliff has employed two ruffians to do this awful deed for the sake of Travers’ money, or—the case is one not possible to solve with ease.”
Frank Reade, Sr., did not display surprise at this statement of his son.
“Now you have the whole thing in a nutshell, my boy,” he said. “Of course, you can do as you please, but if you wish to take any kind of a journey with your new invention, here is a chance, and a noble object in view. That object should be to track down the murderers, and clear Jim Travers. It may be that the nephew, Artemas Cliff, is the really guilty one, but in any case, I believe that it is in the West you will find the solution of the mystery.”
“That is my belief,” agreed Frank Reade, Jr., “but now that this matter is settled let me show you the plans of my steam man.”