The change in King’s manner was very complete.  He was utterly surprised and nonplused, and before he could answer a word Manning placed his hand on his shoulder and said, peremptorily:  “Come in here, Mr. King; perhaps Mr. Wallace can loosen your tongue.”

[Illustration:  “Come in here, Mr. King; perhaps Mr. Wallace can loosen your tongue.”]

They were now directly in front of the office of the chief, and King knew that any attempt at resistance would be futile, and decidedly unwise, so he deemed it best to submit at once.

“Don’t be too hard on a fellow,” said he at last.  “I have a good position and I can’t afford to lose it.  If you will give me a chance, I will tell you all I know.”

“Very well, come right in here,” said Manning, “and if you tell me the truth, I promise you no harm will come to you.”

In a few minutes they were closeted with the chief, who knew King very well, and who added his assurances to those of Manning, that if he would unburden himself fully, no danger need be apprehended.

“I want to say first,” said King, at last convinced that it would be better to make a clean breast of the whole matter, “that what I did, was done in good faith, and I only thought I was helping a friend who had got into trouble through acting in self-defense.”

“Very well,” said Manning, “we will admit all that, but tell us what you know.”

“Well,” answered King, after a pause in which to collect himself, “It was about three weeks ago, that Duncan came to the city, and knowing where I stopped, he came to see me.  I happened to be in from my run when he called, and he wanted to know if I could get a leave of absence for a week, as he wanted to go on a fishing trip and would pay all the expenses.  I went to the master of transportation and found no difficulty in obtaining my leave, and then I saw Tod and told him I was at his service.  We then procured a team, guns, fishing-tackle and provisions, not forgetting a good supply of smoking and drinking articles, and the next day started off in the direction of Grand Junction.  Before we started, Duncan told me about getting into a scrape over a game of cards at Leadville, and that he had shot two gamblers and was keeping out of the way until the excitement over the affair had died out.”

“Duncan has raised one man, I see,” laughed Manning.  “When I heard this story first, he had only killed one gambler in his fight over the cards.”

“Well, I am telling you what Duncan told me,” answered King.

“That’s all right,” said Manning quietly, “but suppose you go ahead and tell us what he told you about robbing the Geneva bank.”

The cool assurance of the detective, and the easy assumption with which he stated his conclusions, so disconcerted King, that he was speechless for a few moments.  Recovering himself quickly, however, he answered doggedly: 

“Well, I intended to tell you the whole story, and I was simply telling it in my own way.”