le
interests of your state. The clerical work seems to be done
accurately and punctually. Your past-due paper is moderate in
amount, and promises only a small loss. I would recommend the
calling in of your large loans, and the making of only sixty and
ninety day or call loans until general business revives. And now,
there is one thing more, and I will have finished with the bank.
Here are six notes aggregating something like $40,000. They are
secured, according to their faces, by various stocks, bonds, shares,
etc. to the value of $70,000. Those securities are missing from the
notes to which they should be attached. I suppose you have them in
the safe or vault. You will permit me to examine them."

Major Tom's light-blue eyes turned unflinchingly toward the
examiner.

"No, sir," he said, in a low but steady tone; "those securities are
neither in the safe nor in the vault. I have taken them. You may
hold me personally responsible for their absence."

Nettlewick felt a slight thrill. He had not expected this. He had
struck a momentous trail when the hunt was drawing to a close.

"Ah!" said the examiner. He waited a moment, and then continued:
"May I ask you to explain more definitely?"

"The securities were taken by me," repeated the major. "It was not
for my own use, but to save an old friend in trouble. Come in here,
sir, and we'll talk it over."

He led the examiner into the bank's private office at the rear, and
closed the door. There was a desk, and a table, and half-a-dozen
leather-covered chairs. On the wall was the mounted head of a Texas
steer with horns five feet from tip to tip. Opposite hung the
major's old cavalry saber that he had carried at Shiloh and Fort
Pillow.

Placing a chair for Nettlewick, the major seated himself by the
window, from which he could see the post-office and the carved
limestone front of the Stockmen's National. He did not speak at
once, and Nettlewick felt, perhaps, that the ice could be broken
by something so near its own temperature as the voice of official
warning.

"Your statement," he began, "since you have failed to modify it,
amounts, as you must know, to a very serious thing. You are aware,
also, of what my duty must compel me to do. I shall have to go
before the United States Commissioner and make--"

"I know, I know," said Major Tom, with a wave of his hand. "You
don't suppose I'd run a bank without being posted on national
banking laws and the revised statutes!