As they proceeded, the sheriff eyed their surroundings keenly, apparently laying his course by landmarks about which Clip had told him. After fifteen minutes of scrambling among the rocks, McKibben brought his two companions to a halt at the foot of a rocky hill. Here there was a hole about three feet deep with a heap of sand lying beside it. Close to the edge of the hole a dozen stones had been laid in the form of a cross.
"There you are Leffingwell," remarked McKibben. "What do you think about it?"
"Some 'un was at work here," replied the deputy, "an' not very long ago, at that."
"It was Clip and Pete," put in Matt, and pointed to the print of a moccasin and of a boot-sole in the soft sand at the side of the hole. "Pima Pete wore moccasins."
"They dug up somethin' here, all right," commented Leffingwell, "but I'll bet somethin' handsome it wasn't money."
McKibben wandered around the vicinity of the hole for a few minutes and then turned and started back toward the road.
"We've only Clipperton's word for it," said he, as he descended the bank to the car.
"Would Pima Pete's sworn statement help any?" asked Matt.
"It might, Matt; but just how much weight Pima Pete's affidavit would have with a jury is a question."
On the homeward trip another halt was made at the place where Fresnay had been robbed. The road was hard at this point, and the unyielding earth had left no sign of what had taken place.
This was another disappointment for Matt. If the ground had been soft, _and no moccasin-tracks found_, a good point would have been scored for Clip. But fate seemed to be working against Clip at almost every turn.
The party got back to Phoenix at half-past ten, and Matt and Chub left the car at the bank. Here Matt drew $200 of the money that had been paid to him as a reward for bringing in Dangerfield, and the boys proceeded at once to the office of a legal gentleman whom Clip declared to be one of the best criminal-lawyers in Phoenix.
The man's name was Short, and, oddly enough, he stood over six feet in his stockings. He had a gimlet-eye and a hawklike face, and was professionally brusk and brutally frank. But he had already heard of Clip's arrest, and, as everybody in town knew Motor Matt--who had been a good deal in the public eye during the preceding weeks--the lawyer listened to the young motorist with attention.