desk?" asked Harry.

"No," answered Philip, ill at ease.

"I should now like to question Colonel Ross," said Harry.

The Colonel, with a curl of the lip, took the stand again.

"Really," he said, "it looks as if my son and I were on trial instead of
the prisoner."

"Colonel Ross, you must be aware that I am according Harry no unusual
privileges. It is as a lawyer--his own advocate--that he questions
you."

"Go on," said the Colonel, haughtily.

"Colonel Ross," continued Harry, "do you generally keep a list of the
numbers on your bonds?"

"Of course!"

"Can you furnish the numbers of the bonds that were taken from you?"

"I can give the numbers of the whole ten bonds. I don't know which were
taken. I have not compared my list with those that remain."

"Have you the numbers with you?"

"Yes, I have them in my notebook."

"Will you be kind enough to repeat them so that the court may take them
down?"

"Certainly! though I don't see what good that will do."

"It is of material importance," said the justice, nodding approval.

Colonel Ross drew from his inside coat pocket a large wallet, and,
opening it, took out a memorandum, from which he read as follows:

"The numbers run from 17,810 to 17,817, inclusive."

"Then the stolen bonds are somewhere between those numbers?" said
Harry.

"Of course."

Harry turned to the constable.

"Mr. Rogers," he said, "have you the bonds which were found at our
house?"

"Yes," answered the constable.

"Will you hand them to Squire Davis, and ask him to read off the
numbers?"

"You will do as Harry requests you," said the justice.

The constable placed the envelope in his hands, and Justice Davis,
opening it, drew out three bonds.

"I find two one-hundred-dollar bonds," he said, "and one fifty-dollar
bond."

"The two hundred-dollar bonds are mine," said Colonel Ross.

"That is, you claim them," said the justice, cautiously. "I will read
the numbers.

"This one," he proceeded, unfolding one, "is numbered 9,867, and the
other"--after a pause--"11,402. It strikes me, Colonel Ross, that you
will have to look further for your bonds."

If such a dignified-looking man as Colonel Ross could look foolish, the
Colonel looked so at that moment. He realized that he had made a
ridiculous exhibition of himself, and he felt mortified to think that he
had been so careless as not to have thought of comparing the numbers of
the bonds the moment he had discovered them in