"You boys are keeping something back—I know that. If you want to get Clip out of a bad hole, Matt, you don't want to keep anything back, no matter what Clip says. You've got to help him in spite of himself. This is no time for false ideas of loyalty to a friend."
"What I know wouldn't clear Clip," said Matt, "although it would explain a few things that are counting against him. I'm in honor bound to keep it quiet."
"Well," went on the sheriff, "have you any idea who Dangerfield's next of kin is?"
"I understand that he has a father living in Emmetsburg, Iowa."
"Good enough! I'll wire that to Leavenworth."
Under McKibben's direction Matt brought the roadster to a stop close to the place where Fresnay's saddle had turned while he was trying to pick up Welcome during the stampede. Leaving the car in charge of Chub, Matt, McKibben, and Leffingwell got out, found the easiest place for climbing the steep bank, and made their way westward into the uplifts.
As they proceeded, the sheriff eyed their surroundings keenly, apparently laying his course by landmarks about which Clip had told him. After fifteen minutes of scrambling among the rocks, McKibben brought his two companions to a halt at the foot of a rocky hill. Here there was a hole about three feet deep with a heap of sand lying beside it. Close to the edge of the hole a dozen stones had been laid in the form of a cross.
"There you are Leffingwell," remarked McKibben. "What do you think about it?"
"Some 'un was at work here," replied the deputy, "an' not very long ago, at that."
"It was Clip and Pete," put in Matt, and pointed to the print of a moccasin and of a boot-sole in the soft sand at the side of the hole. "Pima Pete wore moccasins."