"Maybe if we hurried into San Francisco," suggested Paul, "and saw this witness, we could explain things to him, and ask him to hold off until Mr. Wardell could get here."
"No chance of that," said Dick. "Wardell is in South America--the land knows where. We can't reach him in time."
"But if we could find this witness," persisted Paul.
"He's disappeared, so this newspaper article says," remarked Dick. "That's another funny part of it. It looks like a hold-off game, spiriting the witness away in that fashion, and yet what can we do? Even if we got to 'Frisco before the end of the week, which we could easily do, by abandoning the car and taking a train, what good would it do? We couldn't offset the testimony of this witness."
"It does look as though we were up against it," assented Paul.
"Well, let's have grub," suggested Innis, practically. "It's almost ready. And maybe after supper we'll find a way out."
But even after the meal, eaten amid the silence of the salt desert, their gloomy thoughts were not dispersed. They sat about, moody and quiet, until Paul, with a sarcastic exclamation, cried out:
"Say, this is the limit. Let's do a song and dance, or something like that."
"There is a phonograph stowed away somewhere among my things," said Dick with a laugh that had no mirth in it.
"Trot it out and give us a tune," urged Innis, and, after a moment's thought, Dick complied. Anything was better than sitting about, thinking gloomy thoughts. And really he felt keenly his failure so unexpectedly disclosed by that stray piece of newspaper.
All his hard work--his skill in keeping the legal documents away from the cunning emissaries of Uncle Ezra--had gone for naught, in case it were true what he had read. And he had no reason to doubt it. The paper was a reliable publication, and the names of lawyers were mentioned who had a national reputation.
Of course, in a measure, it was a case of "high finance," perhaps not strictly moral, but perfectly legal. Certain interests wanted control of the railroad, and even Uncle Ezra might be simply a catspaw in the game.
Yet it seemed certain that unless something were done--some sort of legal protest or injunction entered--the Wardell fortune would be wiped out. And this Dick did not want to see happen.