"Why are you so sure?" asked Ted, taking up the interrogation.
"Well, in the first place, he skipped the town just before the body of
the woman was found. He was seen to ride out of town along the road on
which her house stood."
"Is that all the evidence you have against him?"
"No; he was seen coming out of the house about three hours before he was
seen leaving town."
"H'm! Is that all?"
"It comes pretty near enough. But, besides that, it was known that the
woman, who was young and beautiful, had recently received a lot of money
as her share in a mine, and that the money had been taken to her that
morning by one of her partners."
"And it is believed that the young fellow you call Fancy Farnsworth
killed the woman for her money?"
"Sure."
"In what shape was the money? Currency, gold dust, ingots, or gold
coins?"
"It was in ingots."
"Anybody know how much of it there was?"
"Yes; her partner, Billy Slocum, was at the hotel, intendin' to go back
to the mine to-day, and I went to see him."
"And did he give you any idea of how much the gold weighed?"
"Yes, it weighed about thirty pounds. Billy brought it in on his saddle,
and he said it weighed quite considerable."
"But Farnsworth, as you call him, had nothing of the sort when he
arrived here.
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