“Yes.”
“And don’t forget he had two large pokes of gold. Deducing that he came on to Half Way House, what happened? Well, for one thing, he was robbed. It is something more than mere coincidence that Frazer has, or I should say, had two pokes of gold in his possession. The gold was hidden in a secret place. Isn’t that true?” Corporal Rand addressed Dick.
“Yes, it’s quite true.”
“Now we’ve come to your discovery of the pit in the cellar. What was in this pit? More gold? No. Furs? Possibly, but not very likely. One need not keep fur so carefully hid. Mr. Frazer, with perfect impunity and no fear of detection, could have kept stolen fur in the company’s warehouse. So, by elimination and deduction, we arrive gradually at a startling conclusion, namely that the contents of that pit—something that was kept in two burlap sacks—was even of more importance to Mr. Frazer than the gold.”
“How did you make that out?” Sandy again interrupted.
“I’ll prove it to you. When Mr. MacClaren discharged Frazer and drove him away from the post at the point of a gun, there were two things that the latter was unable to take away with him: the gold hid in the office and the sacks concealed in the pit. If the gold had been of more value to Frazer than the contents of the pit, he’d have tried to get the gold first, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes, he would,” agreed Sandy.
“But instead of trying to get the gold first, he sent the Mekewai brothers to procure the two sacks. Why?”
“Yes, yes, why?” blurted Sandy.
“Because he was terribly afraid that in his absence someone would stumble upon what he had hidden in the cellar.”