The fishermen took with them neither rods nor bait.  Their flybooks were left at home.  Beaudry brought to the meeting-place a quarter-inch rope and a grappling-iron with three hooks.  Sweeney and Ryan carried rifles and the rest of the party revolvers.

Dave himself did the actual fishing.  After the grappling-hook had been attached to the rope, he dropped it into Big Creek from a large rock under the bridge that leads to town from Lonesome Park.  He hooked his big fish at the fourth cast and worked it carefully into the shallow water.  Roy waded into the stream and dragged the catch ashore.  It proved to be a gunnysack worth twenty thousand dollars.

Elder counted the sacks inside.  “Everything is all right.  How did you come to drop the money here?”

“I’m mentioning no names, Mr. Elder.  But I was so fixed that I couldn’t turn back.  If I left the road, my tracks would show.  There were reasons why I didn’t want to continue on into town with the loot.  So, as I was crossing the bridge, without leaving the saddle or even stopping, I deposited the gold in the Big Creek safety deposit vault,” Dingwell answered with a grin.

“But supposing the Rutherfords had found it?” The superintendent put his question blandly.

The face of the cattleman was as expressive as a stone wall.  “Did I mention the Rutherfords?” he asked, looking straight into the eye of the Western Express man.  “I reckon you didn’t hear me quite right.”

Elder laughed a little.  He was a Westerner himself.  “Oh, I heard you, Mr. Dingwell.  But I haven’t heard a lot of things I’d like to know.”

The cattleman pushed the sack with his toe.  “Money talks, folks say.”

“Maybe so.  But it hasn’t told me why you couldn’t go back along the road you came, why you couldn’t leave the road, and why you didn’t want to go right up to Sweeney’s office with the sack.  It hasn’t given me any information about where you have been the past two weeks, or how—­”

“My gracious!  He bubbles whyfors and howfors like he had just come uncorked,” murmured Dave, in his slow drawl.  “Just kinder effervesces them out of the mouth.”

“I know you’re not going to tell me anything you don’t want me to know, still—­”

“You done guessed it first, crack.  Move on up to the haid of the class.”

“Still, you can’t keep me from thinking.  You can call the turn on the fellows that robbed the Western Express Company whenever you feel like it.  Right now you could name the men that did it.”

Dave’s most friendly, impudent smile beamed upon the superintendent.  “I thank you for the compliment, Mr. Elder.  Honest, I didn’t know how smart a haid I had in my hat till you told me.”

“It’s good ye’ve got an air-tight alibi yoursilf, Dave,” grinned Pat Ryan.

“I’ve looked up his alibi.  It will hold water,” admitted Elder genially.  “Well, Dingwell, if you won’t talk, you won’t.  We’ll move on up to the bank and deposit our find.  Then the drinks will be on me.”