"Yes, it was—anyhow, it looks like it. All double eagles, Matt. It wasn't the same bag, though—but that don't count. Great guns! I'd never have thought that of Clip. But blood tells, one way or another, and——"
"Don't you think it of him now, Chub!" cried Matt, scrubbing savagely at his face with a towel. "There's not a dishonest hair in Clip's head. You know it and I know it. This thing can all be explained."
"Of course," said Chub, "it's hard to think Clip's a thief, but he's up against a hard lot of circumstances, and it's twenty-three for him, I'm afraid."
"It's all circumstantial evidence," growled Matt, "and that means a doubt on the face of it."
"And then to be caught with the goods——"
"It wasn't the 'goods.' Chub, Clip's a chum of yours and mine. Now's when he needs us, more than at any other time. You take it from me, Clip's innocent. We'll pull together and get him clear."
Matt's confidence aroused Chub's.
"But Clip was disguised, Matt," said Chub, more than willing to be convinced; "how do you account for that?"
Matt knew how to account for it, all right, but he was not at liberty to tell Chub or any one else.
"That can be explained," said Matt quietly.