Investigators intensified their search Thursday for possible accomplices in America's deadliest school shooting.

One Columbine High School student and the parent of another said they had been questioned by police about a teen-ager suspected of lugging duffel bags of bombs into the school and fleeing before the assault that left 15 people dead and 23 wounded.

The teen-ager disappeared, according to his friends, who are cooperating with investigators.

A law enforcement source confirmed that police are seeking a third suspect.

The discovery Thursday of another powerful bomb inside the school strengthened authorities' suspicion that the assault was the work of more than the two student gunmen who apparently killed themselves as SWAT teams closed in.

"We certainly think that there is a very good chance now that we have more than two people involved," Jefferson County sheriff's deputy Steve Davis said. "How many people, I don't know."

The bomb, found tucked away in the school kitchen late Thursday morning, was fashioned from two 20-gallon propane tanks. It would have been difficult for one or two people to move it into the school without help.

Davis said no arrests were imminent.

The Columbine student and the parent said investigators told them not to mention the third suspect or reveal his name.

"We cannot tell anyone who it is," the student said. "They don't know where he is."

She said detectives have interviewed the boy's family twice.

She said he was not present when Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, opened fired on teachers and students.

"He left before it even happened," she said.

Harris and Klebold both died in the school library, apparently after each shot himself in the head.

Another 21 students and two teachers were injured. Fourteen remained hospitalized Thursday -- three in critical condition.

In other developments Thursday:

* Police continued to defend themselves against criticism that they didn't move quickly enough to enter the school after the shooting began.

* The first funeral for the slain victims -- services for student Rachel Scott -- was set for 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

* Attorney General Janet Reno met with Columbine students and staff members and law enforcement officers.

* President Clinton prepared to release $1.5 million to compensate victims of the shooting.

* Vice President Al Gore made plans to attend a memorial service Sunday at Clement Park next to the school.

Colorado Gov. Bill Owens will lead the 1 p.m. service.

"The killers planned to destroy this entire school, and they failed," Owens said Thursday.

District Attorney Dave Thomas said he has reviewed notes apparently written by Harris. They were confiscated along with other evidence by sheriff's deputies at Harris' home.

Thomas would not characterize the writings as a suicide note or whether they described the planning of Tuesday's bloodbath. Thomas said he believed it was written in the last few months.

Thursday's discovery of the large propane bomb in the kitchen brought to 30 or 31 the number of explosives discovered at the school, in cars in the nearby parking lot, and at the homes of Harris and Klebold.

"If the tank's full, 20 pounds of propane can create quite an extensive amount of damage," Davis said.

The number of bombs found -- and the size of the latest discovery -- strengthened authorities' suspicion that more than two were involved in the assault.

"I think it would have been difficult, maybe not impossible, for two people to have gotten all that into the school," Thomas said.

Investigators were considering two scenarios: Either Harris and Klebold had help, or they planted some of the explosives long before their assault began Tuesday.

Some witnesses suggested that more people were involved.

A construction worker said that about 10:40 a.m. Tuesday -- 40 minutes before the gunfire erupted -- he saw an older-model black BMW carrying four teen-agers about a block from the school.

The driver made a U-turn and drove off, followed closely by a tan sedan carrying two more teen-agers.

"It's unusual to see four young kids in a BMW," construction worker Roger Anderson said.

The next day, as he watched television footage of the tragedy, he saw the BMW. He said the car belonged to Klebold.

One student insisted that a third teen was part of the attack.

The student, whose mother asked that he not be identified, said he was in the parking lot and saw two people wearing trench coats -- Harris and Klebold -- and a third teen-ager in a white T-shirt.

"The kid in the white T-shirt, he threw what looked like a grenade on top of the school, and then he turned and kind of smiled at the other two guys," the student said.

But Davis said evidence gathered so far does not point to a third gunman.

Police officials continued to endure criticism that they were slow to storm the school.

Nick Foss, an 18-year-old senior who at one point fell through a ceiling as he tried to flee, said he told officers to move faster.

"They're dying left and right in there," he said he told one officer. "Every time you wait another five minutes, another kid is dead. Go in there, man."

Davis said the criticism wasn't fair.

"There were at least seven or eight officers in that school within just a very few minutes, trying to find out where victims were, trying to find out which victims were injured and get them out of there, trying to look for someone they could identify as a suspect or suspects," he said.

The call for help came at 11:19 a.m. A deputy stationed at the school fired on one of the gunmen, and the first patrol car arrived at 11:21 a.m.

About 20 minutes after the first call for help, a makeshift SWAT team rushed into the school.

"They brought out several victims," Davis said. "They had no idea in a sea of 2,000 students whom they were looking for. I think it was very heroic of those officers."

Some students said they couldn't figure out why SWAT officers weren't able to get a teacher, Dave Sanders, to safety. He'd survived gunshot wounds to the chest for several hours and was still alive when officers got to him, some students said, but apparently died moments later.

"They were trying to do the best they could as quickly as they could under the circumstances," sheriff's Sgt. Jim Parr said. "Do we wish we could have got him out of there sooner? Of course we do."

Investigators have talked to the parents of Harris and Klebold. Both families have refused numerous requests for interviews.

"The family is trying to come to grips with the enormity of this," said Gary Lozow, an attorney for the Klebolds.

Dylan Klebold's parents offered help in the first hours of the ordeal. But they were told it was too late -- a SWAT team was already in the school.

"The family wanted to see what it could do to help in any way, shape or form," Lozow said. "I think the district attorney listened to that and decided the circumstances didn't allow for it."

As investigators worked, U.S. and Colorado flags flopped at half-staff under gray, drizzly skies outside the main entrance on Columbine's northeast entrance. Plywood covered three windows shattered by gunfire.

In Clement Park on the school's north side, a somber procession continued.

Scores of students -- some from other high schools -- brought flowers, teddy bears and candles as memorials to the victims grew. Some parents came with young children.

The procession reduced the soaked ground to mud.

A huge circle of teens formed in the midst of the commotion.

As they sang and prayed, a voice rang out:

"God, Heal these people.

"Heal the people of Oregon, of Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Kentucky ... and Colorado, anywhere that's had a shooting."

News staff writers Karen Abbott, Charley Able, Carla Crowder, Hector Gutierrez, and Katie Kerwin McCrimmon contributed to this report.

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