was no dispute
as to the details. It was the important conclusion that was denied.

"If you found Mr. Cameron lying there unconscious," Nestor asked of
Scoby, "why didn't you summon help? You had no cause for enmity
against him, had you?"

"I wasn't there as first aid to the wounded," replied Scoby, sullenly.
"I was there on business, and in danger of being caught at it, at that.
Besides, I looked Cameron over, and thought he was out for the count
and nothing more. Why don't you ask that foxy-looking guy over there,"
pointing to Don Miguel, "what he done it for?"

Don Miguel glared at Scoby, but said nothing.

"He says Cameron was well and hearty when he went in there. Well,
Cameron wasn't well at all when he went in there, and I don't believe
there was anybody in there between us. You search him for a reason."

"Were the lights on when you went in there?" asked Nestor.

"Yes," was the reply.

"And you switched them off?"

Scoby nodded and glanced toward Felix,

"How long was it after you left the room that Fremont came up?"

Both men refused to make any definite statement as to this, and Nestor
saw that they were concealing something, that he had struck a feature
of the case upon which they had made no agreement as to what should be
told and what kept secret.

"These men are trying to put their crime on me," Don Miguel now said,
fury in his tone. "They know that I left Mr. Cameron working at his
desk. They were in the corridor and saw me pass down the elevator,
which was making its last trip at that moment. They were whispering in
a corner, in sight of the door to the Cameron suite. They took
advantage of circumstances to place the crime on me."

This was what Nestor was aiming at. The three men, the only ones there
that night, so far as he knew, were quarreling with each other. This
would help in bringing out the truth. He decided to talk no more on
the case for the time being.

"We ought to be looking up the boys," he said, by way of changing the
subject.

"It will be daylight very soon now," Lieutenant Gordon replied, "and
then something may be done. Rest assured that we shall do all we can
to bring them back."

"It appears to me," Nestor said, thoughtfully, "that you ought to be
getting these prisoners over the river."

"Yes, that is important," said the lieutenant.

"We do not know what is going on over there," the boy continued. "The
arms which this man succeeded in purchasing