Nor did the pounding insistence of intuitive knowledge that the whole thing had been a deliberately staged plot on the part of the Rodaines, father and son, make the slightest difference in Fairchild's estimation.

How could he prove it?
By personal animosity?
There was the whole town of Ohadi to testify that the highwayman was a big man, of the build of Harry, and that he spoke with a Cornish accent.

There were the sworn members of the posse to show that they, without guidance, had discovered the horse and the cache,--and the Rodaines were nowhere about to help them.

And experience already had told Fairchild that the Rodaines, by a deliberately constructed system, held a ruling power; that against their word, his would be as nothing.
Besides, where would be Harry's alibi?
He had none; he had been at the mine, alone.

There was no one to testify for him, not even Fairchild.
The world was far from bright.