“Yes, men. At least, we’re doing men’s work.”
Chuckling to himself, Sandy’s uncle departed upon his errand. Not long afterward Corporal Rand himself appeared in the doorway and came eagerly toward them.
“Well! Well!” he exclaimed. “So you’re back. What luck did you have?”
“Great!” replied Dick, too weary to rise. “If you’ll sit down for a moment, corporal, we’ll tell you everything.”
When Dick and Sandy had completed their narrative, Corporal Rand sat for a long time in thought. His fingers drummed on the table.
“You’ve done much better than I expected,” he complimented them. “And to be perfectly frank, I don’t know what to think of it all. Those two men you spoke of, who attacked Creel and secured the poke, I can’t recall that I’ve ever seen them. However, your description tallies with that of two prospectors I met one time at Fort MacMurray. But that’s hundreds of miles from here. It hardly seems likely that it would be the same pair. But that is neither here nor there. You boys have practically established Frischette’s guilt. If he didn’t actually take the poke from Dewberry himself, he must have induced Creel to do it. Probably when I have seen and talked with Creel I can force the truth from him.”
“Will you place Creel under arrest?” asked Sandy.
“Not unless I can get him to confess. As yet we can prove nothing against him.”
Naida appeared at this juncture to announce that breakfast was ready, and Corporal Rand accompanied the two boys to the dining room. Dick and Sandy applied themselves with such diligence to the feast before them, that Rand refrained from asking any more questions just then. When the boys had pushed back their chairs, sighing contentedly, Rand took up the subject anew.
“I’m glad you came when you did. I’m anxious to go out on the trail after Frischette. Just now Frischette holds the key to the riddle. If we can catch him, I think our troubles will be at an end.”