.
"It's hopeless to try to keep track of Barzy Blunt, or to figure out
from what he's done, what he's going to do next. From what McGurvin
said, I thought Blunt had come here with some of his friends. Maybe he
did. Possibly he collected the professor's goods and chattels and rode
off with them. It isn't likely, though. Cow-punchers wouldn't be apt to
do all that freighting on horseback. Would they take the trouble to
balance a cot across one of their horses and ride away with it? Or the
professor's trunk? I guess Blunt and his friends wouldn't have much use
for the professor's plunder; so it's a fair surmise they didn't take it.
Some one else did, that's evident. The testimony all points to the
professor himself."

"He left Gold Hill to come to Happenchance," remarked Chancy. "Why
didn't he tell us about it? It couldn't have been such an awful secret
he had to keep it to himself."

"It's a deuce of a hard thing to figure out," said Merry. "I don't think
we ever will understand it until Borrodaile bobs up and clears away the
mystery himself. I've a hunch that Blunt is the key to this riddle of
the professor's whereabouts. The Wonder may be somewhere around--that
is, if McGurvin wasn't lying."

"You can bank on it, Chip, that a robber like McGurvin wouldn't tell the
truth if it was to his interest to tell something else."

"He said he didn't know Nick Porter, a man who has been roaming these
deserts all his life. If that's the truth, it's remarkable."

"Now you're getting back to Porter again. I thought we had agreed to let
him go, and pin our faith to Barzy Blunt."

"Blunt, I think, is our best bet. I merely rang in Porter to give you my
estimate of McGurvin's truthfulness. Porter couldn't have been at the
McGurvin place, or we'd have found his horse."

"That's so." Clancy yawned. "I move we stay here all night and knock
around a little in the morning. A good deal of the night has gone,
anyway, and I guess we can stick out the rest of it in Happenchance.
What do you say?"

"It's important to locate the professor," said Merry. "Dad's telegram
puts that right up to us. Now that we're here, we'd better wait until
morning and see if anything develops. We'll bring in the machines, hunt
a couple of soft rocks, and see if we can't get a little sleep."

The motor cycles were trundled into the old house, the light put out,
and the lads lay down on the old clay floor with lumps of broken adobe
for pillows. In spite of t