A VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES.
"Arrested!"
Matt staggered back and dropped on the edge of the bed.
"That's right! Don't it knock you slabsided? Clip! Think of it! I've
been on the blink ever since I heard it. Welcome was up early this
mornin' and he saw 'em passin' the house, taking Clip to jail. Hogan
and Leffingwell, two of McKibben's deputies, had him. And Hogan's arm
was in a sling--he'd been shot."
"Not by Clip!" exclaimed Matt, horrified.
"No, but by Pima Pete, one of the Dangerfield gang who was with Clip.
Pete got away; and Clip could have got away, too, only he didn't
try. That ain't the worst of it, though!" Chub mopped his face with
a handkerchief and began fanning himself with his hat. "Great horned
toads, Matt, but things have been happenin' so fast I'm fair dazed with
'em all."
"What else has happened, Chub?" demanded Matt, getting up and beginning
to scramble into his clothes. "Go ahead. I'll listen while I'm getting
dressed."
"You remember what Josh Fresnay, that cowboy, told us," went on Chub,
"while we had him on the car racin' away from those stampeding steers?
He said he was going to town after ten thousand in gold to meet the
Fiddleback pay-roll."
"Yes," put in Matt, with a start, "I remember that."
"Well, Fresnay was robbed, last night. He started for the ranch about
nine in the evening, and when he struck the hills, close to the place
where we met the stampeded herd, somebody roped him from the roadside
and jerked him out of the saddle. He was pretty badly stunned, but he
was able to see that there were two who turned the trick. They looked
like half-breeds, to him, although it was too dark to see anything very
plain. Before Fresnay could untangle the rope, the two robbers had cut
his bag of gold from the saddle and made off with it. Fresnay, as soon
as he could corral his wits, started back to town. As luck would have
it, he met Hogan and Leffingwell, and told them what had happened.
They all three started for the place where the robbery had been pulled
off, and ran smack into Clip and this Pima Pete; what's more, Clip was
lugging a bag containing nine thousand dollars in gold, and Pete had a
buckskin pouch with the other thousand. Now, what d'you think o' that!"
Matt was dumfounded. Towel in hand, he turned gaspingly from the
wash-stand and stared at Chub.
But Matt knew what had happened. In spite of his advice, Clip had gone
with Pima Pete to Dangerfield's cache and dug up the money. Pete had
probably needed the thousand to get away with. By an irony of fate,
Dangerfield had buried $10,000 in gold--just the amount which had been
stolen from Fresnay.
"But it wasn't the same money!" declared Matt.
"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.
The shock of Chub's news had passed, and Matt's keen mind was now busy
with the situation. Every circumstance Chub had mentioned was but
another coil about the unfortunate Clip. Matt blamed himself for not
insisting on going with Clip to meet Pima Pete. Had he gone, he knew
he could have kept Pete and Clip from going to Dangerfield's cache and
getting the gold. But for that fateful gold, a little figuring would
have let Clip out of the whole affair.
"You got all this from Welcome?" asked Matt.
"That's how," replied Chub. "Welcome came on in with Hogan and
Leffingwell, and they told him all of it."
"Didn't Clip say anything?"
"You can search me. He was riding behind Leffingwell, handcuffed and
tied to the horse. He looked all gloomed up, Perk said."
"Why shouldn't he?" demanded Matt. "Why did they let Pima Pete get
away?" he added angrily. "If they'd brought _him_ in, this whole thing
could have been straightened out."
"How? You seem to know something--put me wise, Matt."
"I can't tell you now, Chub, but maybe I may after I talk with Clip.
Did the deputies tell Welcome how Pima Pete managed to escape?"
"They said he pulled a gun, fired, and jumped into the rocks at the
trailside. He dropped the pouch with the thousand, in his hurry. Hogan
was hurt, as I said, but Leffingwell drew a gun and would have dropped
Pima Pete if Clip hadn't knocked the gun aside. And that's another
point against Clip. Jumpin' tarantulas!" and Chub shook his head
ominously. "I don't see how we're ever goin' to get Clip out of this,
Matt. Even if he wasn't guilty, he acted that way right from the start."
"But he didn't try to run himself! Don't forget that, Chub. What time
were Clip and Pima Pete met up with by the deputies?"
"A little after ten last night."
"And they didn't bring Clip in till early this morning?"
"No. Hogan watched Clip, and Leffingwell chased after Pete. Leffingwell
couldn't use his horse--you know the lay of the ground out there beside
the trail--so Leffingwell had to do his huntin' on foot. He used up
several hours, I guess, but Pete got away from him."
"There's another point, Chub," said Matt. "How could Hogan and
Leffingwell tell the man was Pete, if it was dark?"
"Leffingwell knows Pete pretty well. You see, Leffingwell comes from
Prescott, an' that place used to be an old stamping-ground of the
half-breed's. And then Leffingwell got close enough to Pete so he could
see him. It was a clear night, and there was a good moon."
Matt knew, naturally, that Leffingwell had made no mistake.
"You say Clip's in jail?" inquired Matt, reaching for his cap.
"That's where they were taking him."
"Well, we'll get a permit from Mr. McKibben and go and have a talk with
Clip. I guess the sheriff will be in his office now, on account of
this, so we'll slide for the court-house. Come on."
They descended the stairs quickly and let themselves out into the clear
morning air.
Would Clip still allow his pride to stand between himself and freedom?
He had told Matt that he would die before he would let any one in
Phoenix know that Pima Pete was a relative of his. Could Clip explain
matters satisfactorily by keeping his relationship with Pete in the
background?
The sheriff was in his office, and with him were Hogan and Fresnay.
Hogan's arm was hanging from his neck in a sling, and there was a
strong smell of drugs in the room, proving that the arm had recently
been dressed by a surgeon. Fresnay also had a few bruises, caused by
his fall from the back of his horse.
On the sheriff's desk lay a dingy canvas bag and a greasy pouch of
buckskin. There was a big pile of gold pieces stacked up by the canvas
bag, and a smaller pile heaped up by the pouch.
"Hello, Matt!" called the sheriff, motioning both boys to chairs. "I
felt pretty sure you'd show up. Tough luck, eh? But I was afraid of
something like this when I called on you last night."
"Clip's innocent, Mr. McKibben," asserted Matt stoutly. "You've made a
mistake, Fresnay," he added to the cowboy.
"Wisht I had, pard," answered Fresnay, "jest on yore account. Didn't
know, till McKibben told me, that you was sich a great friend o'
Clipperton's. But ye kain't dodge the facts, son."
"If you'd got a good look at the two who robbed you," went on Matt,
"you'd have known at once that one of them wasn't Clip."
"I was kinder dazed, but them thieves looked like the half-breed and
Clipperton. Anyways, we found 'em with the gold, an' that makes it a
dead open-an'-shut."
"Is it the same gold?"
"Double eagles. The payin'-teller at the bank'll tell you that's how I
drawed the pay-roll money. Allers git it that way."
"Is it the same bag?"
"Waal, no, but it 'u'd be plumb easy ter change bags."
"If your bag was a good one, why would a change be made to that other
one?" and Matt's eyes rested on the dingy canvas receptacle on the
sheriff's desk.
"Give it up, pard. We got ter take things as we find 'em."
"I know, Matt," put in McKibben, "that you hate to think this of Clip
even more than I do, but we've got a clean case against the boy. In the
first place, he was in the red roadster when Fresnay told all of you
he was coming to town after ten thousand in gold; then Clipperton gets
into a disguise and walks into the hills--_walks_, mind you, so no one
will guess who he is, which wouldn't have been hard if he'd taken the
motor-cycle; and then he's bagged with the money and refuses to say a
word about that note Pima Pete gave him, or how he came to be in the
hills with the half-breed. It looks mighty bad for Clipperton, I can
tell you that. I've sent for him, though, so as to have another talk
with him. Glad you came. Maybe you can get him to say something. Ah,
here he is now."
Just at that moment the door opened and Clip came into the room. He was
handcuffed, and Leffingwell had a hand through his arm.
Matt and Chub got up and stepped toward their chum.
"Cheer up, old chum!" said Matt, taking Clip's hand. "We know you're
innocent, and we're going to prove it."
"You bet we are!" declared Chub.
Clip looked his gratitude, at the same time there was a restraining
gleam in the eyes he turned on Matt.