No trace, however, was discovered of the sack supposed to contain the five thousand dollars whose disappearance was still a mystery.

Pearson indignantly denied having taken more than six thousand dollars as his share, and this had been found in the yard of his father's house.
Edwards was equally positive that he had not seen this sack, and yet the fact remained that there were five thousand dollars in gold coin which could not, as yet, be accounted for.
Numerous theories were now advanced to account for this mysterious disappearance.

One was that some outside party had found the valise, and finding the gold, had left the silver in order to make it appear that the satchel had not been disturbed.

This was discarded at once, as the position and condition of the valise when found was such that it could not have been tampered with, or even opened.

This was a surprising thing to contemplate, for the ground for miles around had been thoroughly searched by hundreds of people, and it was evident that no one had discovered the hiding-place of this valise.
Another theory was that it was improbable that the two robbers would overlook a sack containing that large amount of money.