e in time
is it? That's what I want to know."

Jed rubbed his chin.

"Are you sure you had it when you left Wapatomac?" he asked.

"Sure? No, I ain't sure of anything. But I'd have sworn I did.
The money was on the table along with my hat and gloves. I picked
it up and shoved it in my overcoat pocket. And that was a darned
careless place to put it, too," he added, testily. "I'd have given
any feller that worked for me the devil for doin' such a thing."

Jed nodded, sympathetically. "But you might have left it there to
Sylvester's," he said. "Have you thought of telephonin' to find
out?"

"Have I thought? Tut, tut, tut! Do you think I've got a head like
a six-year-old young-one--or you? Course I've thought--and
'phoned, too. But it didn't do me any good. Sylvester's house is
shut up and the old man's gone to Boston, so the postmaster told me
when I 'phoned and asked him. Won't be back for a couple of days,
anyhow. I remember he told me he was goin'!"

"Sho, sho! that's too bad."

"Bad enough, but I don't think it makes any real difference. I
swear I had that money when I left Sage's. I came in here and then
I went straight to the bank."

"And after you got there?"

"Oh, when I got there I found no less than three men, not countin'
old Mrs. Emmeline Bartlett, in my room waitin' to see me. Nellie
Hall--my typewriter, you know--she knew where I'd been and what a
crank old Sage is and she says: 'Did you get the money, Cap'n?'
And I says: 'Yes, it's in my overcoat pocket this minute.' Then I
hurried in to 'tend to the folks that was waitin' for me. 'Twas an
hour later afore I went to my coat to get the cash. Then, as I
say, all I could find was the two five hundred packages. The four
hundred one was gone."

"Sho, sho! Tut, tut, tut! Where did you put the coat when you
took it off?"

"On the hook in the clothes closet where I always put it."

"Hum-m! And--er--when you told Nellie about it did you speak
loud?"

"Loud? No louder'n I ever do."

"Well--er--that ain't a--er--whisper, Sam, exactly."

"Don't make any difference. There wasn't anybody outside the
railin' that minute to hear if I'd bellered like a bull of Bashan.
There was nobody in the bank, I tell you, except the three men and
old Aunt Emmeline and they were waitin' in my private room. And
except for Nellie and Eddie Ellis, the messenger, and Charlie
Phillips, there wan't a soul around, as it happened. The money
hasn