Well, to return.

Flint only said that he had got them from a man called Thompson, who had got them from somebody else in exchange for goods.

A year or two afterwards this same Thompson happened to be frozen up with me in Starvation Camp.

When he thought he was dying he confessed that he had been bribed by Flint to say what he had said, but that he believed the coins were stolen.

Meantime, Flint had disappeared.