Down at the office of Benjamin Oaks, when the patrol wagon had taken the prisoner away, the lawyer and Nick had spent a few moments in conversation, and then Nick had hurried away to his own house to meet Patsy, who had notified him by telephone at the lawyer’s office of his arrival. Chick was there, too, waiting.
Nor was that all.
Patsy had not returned alone.
He had brought with him an emaciated but convalescent gentleman, and when he introduced that person to Nick Carter it was done in these words:
“Mr. Lynne, this is Mr. Carter. Chief, this man is the real Carleton Lynne. He went to the Klondike at the time of the rush with a friend named Henry Carroll. He got lost in a storm while there and was reported dead. In reality, the silence and the cold destroyed his reason, and for years he wandered about the world, not knowing who he was. But his memory returned to him a few months ago, and he made his way back again to Hailey, Idaho, where he is well known, and where there is sufficient proof of his identity, as I have found.
“You will notice that there is a strange as well as an unaccountable resemblance between him and Henry Carroll—at least, he tells me there is, and Chick agrees with him; and that, I think, in part accounts for the daring effort on the part of Carroll to pass himself off as Lynne. Of course, the stolen papers and photograph assisted in that—and Carroll took good care not to appear in Hailey as Lynne.â€�
And so it was that the rightful heir came into his own at last.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A MAN WITH A GUN.
Carleton Lynne raised himself in the bed, not without some difficulty, and stared at the intruder. He was weak, and therefore unable to defend himself, but no trace of fear showed upon his features, or in his eyes, which gazed quite calmly into the eyes of the man who had quietly seated himself upon a chair ten feet away and who was holding an automatic pistol so that the muzzle of it menaced him.
Carleton Lynne had stared death in the face too many times to be greatly frightened by the present episode. Experience had taught him that when one man threatens another with a gun, he does not intend to make use of it unless the necessity arises; and as yet there was no necessity that this gun should be used.