"I dropped _him_ long ago.

The one I'm after now is the real murderer." Mattison scowled slightly.
"If you can explain what it was that happened in that cave that upset him so mightily, I'd come a little nearer to believing you." Terry laughed and fell back beside him.
"It's a thing which I imagine may have happened to one or two other young men of this neighborhood--not inconceivably yourself included." Mattison, seeing no meaning in this sally, preserved a sulky silence and Terry added: "The thing for us to do now is to bend all our energies toward finding Cat-Eye Mose.

I doubt if we can completely explain the mystery until he is discovered." "And that," said the sheriff, "will be never! You may mark my words; whoever killed the Colonel, killed Mose, too." "It's possible," said Terry with an air of sadness, "but I hope not.

I came all the way down from New York on purpose to see Mose, and I should hate to miss him.".