"Fifty thousand cash and ten thousand shares of preferred
stock--hundred dollars par."
"What's that worth?"
"At the market rate when I left town, seventy-eight." Kellogg waited a
moment. "Well, what do you say?"
"Say? Great Caesar's Ghost! What is there to say? Wire 'em an
acceptance before they get their second wind.... You don't know how
good this makes me feel, Harry; I can't thank you enough for what
you've done. This'll square me with Graham to some extent, and I can
clear out----"
"No, you can't, Mr. Smarty! You ain't been 'cute enough."
Both men, startled by the interruption, wheeled round to discover
Roland Barnette dancing with excitement in the doorway, the while he
beckoned frantically to an invisible party without. "Come on!" he
shouted. "Here he is!"
"What's eating you, Roly-Poly?" inquired
Nat, too happy for the money to cherish animosity even toward his
one-time rival.
"You'll find out soon enough," snarled Roland. "Mr. Lockwood's got
something to say to you, I guess."
And on the heels of this announcement Lockwood strode into the store,
Josie clinging to his arm, Pete Willing--a trifle more sanely drunk
than he had been some hours previous--bringing up the rear.
"So!" snarled Blinky, halting and transfixing Nat with the stare of his
cold blue eyes. "So we've found you, eh?"
"Oh? I didn't know I was lost."
"No nonsense, young man. I ain't in the humour for foolin'." Blinky was
unquestionably in no sort of a humour at all beyond an evil one. "I
come here to have a word with you."
"Well, sir?" Nat's tone and attitude were perfectly pacific.
"Ah, there ain't no use beatin' 'round the bush. You've behaved
yourself ever since you come to Radville, and insinooated yourself into
our confidence, 'spite of the fact that nobody in town knows who you
were before you came. But now Roland's laid a charge again' you, and I
want to know the rights to it."
"Well," Roland interposed cockily, "I accused him of it to-night and he
didn't deny it."
[Illustration: "You're a thief with a reward out for you!"]
"What's more," Lockwood continued with rising colour, "Roland says he
can prove it?"
"Prove what?" Nat insisted. "Get down to facts, can't you?"
"That you're a thief with a reward out for you," said Roland. "You're
that Mortimer Henry what absconded from the Longacre National Bank in
Noo York."
There fell a brief pause. Nat bowed his head and tugged at his
moustache, his shoulders shaking with emotion variously construed by
those who watched him. Presently he looked up again, his features
gravely composed.
"Roly," said he, "Balaam must miss you terribly."
"That ain't no answer." Lockwood put himself solidly between Nat and
the object of his obscure remark--who was painfully digesting it. "I
want to know about this. You got my daughter to say she'd marry you
this evenin', and you've got to explain to me about this bank business
before it goes any further."
"Yes?" commented Nat civilly.
"Yes!" thundered Blinky. "Do you deny it? ... Answer me."
To Kellogg's huge diversion, Nat struck an attitude, "I refuse to
answer," said he.
"Aha! What'd I tell you?" This was Roland's triumphant crow.
"Nat!" Josie advanced, trembling with excitement. "Tell me, what does
this mean?"
Duncan perforce avoided her gaze. "Don't ask," he said sadly.
"Is it true?" she insisted.
"You heard what Roly said," he replied, with a chastened expression.
"Then you admit it?"
"I admit nothing."
"Oh-h!" The girl drew away from him as from defilement. "I--I hate
you!" she cried in a voice of loathing
"That's all right," he told her serenely; "I've despised myself all
evening."
The girl showed him a scornful back. "Papa----" she began.
"Don't thank me, Josie. Roland done it all: he got onto him." Lockwood
continued to watch Duncan with the air of a cat eyeing a mouse.
Impulsively Josie moved to Roland's side and caught his arm. He drew
himself up proudly.
"I do thank you, Roland; I can never be grateful enough. I've been so
foolish.
"That's all right." Roland tucked the girl's hand beneath his arm and
patted it down. "You wasn't to blame. I never seen anyone from Noo York
yet that wasn't a crook."
"Won't you please take me away from this--place, Roland?" she appealed.
"I'll be mighty glad to see you home, Josie," he assured her
generously, turning.
In the act of leaving, Josie caught Nat's eye. She hung back for an
instant, withering him with a glare. "Oh-h!" she cried. "How did you
dare pretend to care for me?"