“Yes,” insisted Rand, “Only—”
“Yuh see, me an’ Emery ain’t had nothin’ tuh eat fer a long time. Soon as we get suthin’—jes’ a bite, corporal—we’ll be ready tuh start. Ain’t that fair enough?”
Rand nodded. His brow had contracted slightly, deepening the pucker between his eyes.
“There’s one thing you’ve forgotten to tell me,” he informed them. “Burnnel, you said a moment ago that the man out there reminded you of someone. Who?”
“Yes, yes,” said the big man eagerly, “I was a comin’ tuh that. It’ll explain, corporal, why we drifts back this way ’stead o’ goin’ on to Deer Lick Springs. Yuh see, the man out there looked,” he paused, wetting his lips, “looked like this here fellow what runs this stoppin’-place—this here Frenchie Frischette.”
The three boys bounded from their seats. Corporal Rand himself started visibly. With one exception every one in the room showed his astonishment. That exception was Creel. The old recluse sat perfectly unmoved, as though he had expected, had been prepared for the strange denouement.
CHAPTER X
CONFLICTING THEORIES
Soon after the departure of Corporal Rand, Burnnel and Emery, the boys sat in the big, cheerful room of Frischette’s road-house and discussed the latest episode in the chain of mysterious events.
“I never expected to encounter anything like this,” Sandy was saying. “Honestly, Dick, it gives me the shivers just to think about it. If I were called upon to express an opinion, I’d say that the farther we get into this case, the more muddled and difficult everything appears to be. For one thing, whoever would have guessed that this sudden tragedy would have overtaken Frischette. What is the reason for it? Do you really believe the story about the suicide?”
“It sounds plausible, the way they tell it, but to be perfectly frank, I think it’s a deliberate lie. Why should Frischette take his own life? It would be rather difficult to supply a motive.”