n, is that Gabe's signature?"

"No--I couldn't get Gabe to sign it--and we had to have it to make
his account balance."

"And you forged his note,--and are carrying it?" cried Hendricks,
rising.

"Oh, sit down, Bob--we did it here amongst hands. It wasn't exactly
my affair, the way it got squared around."

Hendricks took the note to the window. He was flushed, and the devil
got into his eyes when he came back, and he cried, "And you made
father do it!"

Barclay smiled pacifically, and limped over to Hendricks and took the
note from him and put it back into the portmanteau. Then Barclay
replied: "No, Bob, I didn't make your father--the times made your
father. It was that or confess to Gabe Carnine, who swelled up on
taking his job, that we hadn't paid the taxes on the company's land,
though our check had been passed for it. When it came in, we gave the
county treasurer credit on his daily bank-book for the nine thousand,
but we held out the check. Do you see?"

"Yes, that far," replied Hendricks.

"Well, it's a long story after that, but when I found Gabe wouldn't
accommodate us for six months by giving us his note to carry as cash
until we could pay it,--the inspectors wouldn't take mine or your
father's,--and our books had to show the amount of gross cash that
the treasurer deposited before Gabe came in, your father thought it
unwise to keep holding checks that had already been paid in the drawer
as cash for that nine thousand, so we--well, one day he just put this
note in, and worked it through the books."

Hendricks had his devil well in hand as he stared at Barclay, and then
said: "John--this is mighty dangerous business. Are we carrying his
account nine thousand short on our books, and making his pass-book
balance?"

"That's it, only--"

"But suppose some one finds it out?" asked Hendricks.

"Oh, now, Bob, keep your shirt on. I fixed that. You know they keep
two separate accounts,--a general maintenance account and a bond
account, and Gabe has been letting us keep the paid-off bonds in the
vault and look after their cancelling, and while he was sick, I was in
charge of the treasurer's office and had the run of the bank, and I
squared our account at the Eastern fiscal agency and in the bond
account in the treasurer's office, and fixed up the short maintenance
account all with nine thousand dollars' worth of old bonds that were
kicking around the vault uncancelled, and now the job is hermetically
seal