; though in the face of the evidence
and his own stubborn refusal to explain it, I don't see how he could
have expected any other outcome. As for myself, it was better than I had
feared.

CHAPTER XV

FALSE CLUES

The fight had now fairly begun. The district attorney was working up the
side of the prosecution, aided, I was sure, by the over-zealous sheriff.
It remained for me to map out some definite plan of action and organize
the defence.

As I rode back to Four-Pools in the early evening after the inquest, I
continued to dwell upon the evidence, searching blindly for some clue.
The question which returned most persistently to my mind was "What has
become of Cat-Eye Mose?" It was clear now that upon the answer to this
question hinged the ultimate solution of the mystery. I still clung to
the belief that he was guilty and in hiding. But five days had elapsed
since the murder, and no trace of him had been discovered. It seemed
incredible that a man, however well he might know his ground, could,
with a whole county on his track, elude detection so effectually.

Supposing after all that he were not guilty, but the sheriff's theory
that he had been killed and the body concealed, were true; then who,
besides Radnor, could have had any motive for committing the crime?
There was nothing from the past that afforded even the suggestion of a
clue. The old man seemed to have had no enemies but his sons. His sons?
The thought of Jeff suddenly sprang into my mind. If anyone on earth
owed the Colonel a grudge it was his elder son. And Jeff had more than
his share of the Gaylord spirit which could not lightly forgive an
injury. Could he have returned secretly to the neighborhood, and,
following his father into the cave, have quarreled with him? Heaven
knows he had cause enough! He may, in his anger, have struck the old man
without knowing what he was doing, and overcome with horror at the
result, have left him and fled.

I was almost as reluctant to believe him guilty of the crime as to
believe it of Radnor, but the thought having once come, would not be
dismissed. I knew that he had sunk pretty low in the nine years since
his disappearance, but I could never think of him otherwise than as I
myself remembered him. He had been the hero of my boyhood and I revolted
from the thought of deliberately setting out to prove him guilty of his
father's murder.

I spurred my horse into a gallop, miserably trying to escape from m