he deeds and insurance policies and coin may have
been taken as a blind; but it's queer. The money was in five and ten
cent pieces and pennies--we always keep a lot of change on hand to pay
the piece-workers during planting season. There was nearly a quart of it
altogether and it must have weighed a ton. I can't imagine anyone
stealing Government four-per-cents and pennies at the same haul."

"Did you get any light from Mose?" I asked.

"No, I can't make head nor tail out of his story. He isn't given to
seeing visions, and as you know, he isn't afraid of the dark. He saw
something that scared him; but what it was, I'll be darned if I know!"

"Then why not get a detective down and see if he can't find out?"

Radnor lowered his eyes a moment, then raised them frankly to mine.

"Oh, hang it, Arnold; I'm in the deuce of a hole! There's something else
that I don't want found out. It's absolutely unconnected with the
robbery, but you bring a detective down here and he's certain to stumble
on that instead of the other. I'd tell you if I could, but really I
can't just now. It's nothing I'm to blame for--my conduct lately has
been immaculate. You get my father to abandon this detective plan, and
we'll buckle down together and root out the truth about the robbery."

"Well," I promised, "I'll see what I can do; but as the Colonel says,
five thousand dollars is a good deal of money to let slip through your
hands without making an effort to get it back. You and I will have to
finish the business if we undertake it."

"We will!" he assured me. "We can certainly get at the truth better
than an outsider who doesn't know any of the facts. You switch off the
old gentleman from putting it in the hands of the police and everything
will come out right."

He went off actually whistling again. Whatever had been troubling him
for the past two weeks had been sloughed off during the night, and all
that remained now was the danger of detection; with this removed he was
his old careless self. The loss of the securities was apparently not
bothering him. Radnor always did exhibit a lordly disregard in money
matters.

I lost no time in taking my errand to the Colonel, but I could discover
him in none of the down stairs rooms nor anywhere else about the place.
It occurred to me, after half an hour of searching, to see if his horse
were in the stable; as I had surmised it was not. He had ordered it
saddled immediately after breakfast and had r