unterfeit bill here in my pocket, which Cragg tried to pass
on the storekeeper," she said.

"Let me see it."

Josie searched and found the bill. O'Gorman flashed a circle of light
on it and studied it attentively.

"Here," he said, passing it back to her. "Don't lose it, Josie. It's
worth ten dollars."

"Isn't it counterfeit?" she asked, trying to swallow a big lump that
rose in her throat.

"It is one of the recent issues, good as gold."

She sat silent, rigid with disappointment. Never had she been as
miserable as at this moment. She felt like crying, and a sob really did
become audible in spite of her effort to suppress it. Again O'Gorman
passed his arm affectionately around her waist and held her close while
she tried to think what it all meant.

"Was that bill your only basis of suspicion, dear?" he presently
inquired.

"No, indeed. Do you hear that noise? What are they doing down there?"

"I imagine they are running a printing press," he replied.

"Exactly!" she said triumphantly. "And why do these men operate a
printing press in a secret cavern, unless they are printing counterfeit
money?"

"Ah, there you have allowed your imagination to jump," returned her
father. "Haven't I warned you against the danger of imagination? It
leads to theory, and theory leads--nine times in ten--to failure."

"Circumstantial evidence is often valuable," declared Josie.

"It often convicts," he admitted, "but I am never sure of its justice.
Whenever facts are obtainable, I prefer facts."

"Can you explain," she said somewhat coldly, for she felt she was
suffering a professional rebuke, "what those men below us are printing,
if not counterfeit money?"

"I can," said he.

"And you have been down there, investigating?"

"Not yet," he answered coolly.

"Then _you_ must be theorizing, Daddy."

"Not at all. If you know you have two marbles in one pocket and two
more in another pocket, you may be positive there are four altogether,
whether you bother to count them individually or not."

She pondered this, trying to understand what he meant.

"You don't know old Cragg as well as I do," she asserted.

"Let us argue that point," he said quickly. "What do you know about
him?"

"I know him to be an eccentric old man, educated and shrewd, with a
cruel and murderous temper; I know that he has secluded himself in this
half-forgotten town for many years, engaged in some secret occupation
which he fears to have discove