ou were up here last?"

"Oh, I've been putting in most of my time on board the _Olympia_, as
usual," replied the young tar. "About all we are doing is to nose
around any strange vessels that come into the harbor. Since the
outbreak in Manila last February, the navy has had next to nothing to
do, and I'm thinking strongly of asking to be transferred to the
marines at Cavite, or elsewhere."

"I don't blame you." Ben Russell paused. "Have you heard anything more
about Braxton Bogg and that hundred and forty thousand dollars he said
he had left hidden in Benedicto Lupez's house in Manila?"

A shade of anxiety crossed Larry Russell's face. "Yes, I've heard a
good deal--more than I wanted to, Ben. But I wasn't going to speak of
it, for fear of adding to your worry and making you feel worse."

"Why, Larry, you don't mean-- Has Braxton Bogg escaped from jail and
got hold of the money again?"

"No, Braxton Bogg is still in prison at Manila, although the
Buffalo bank officials are about to have him returned to the
United States for trial. But the money has disappeared. The police
authorities at Manila went to Benedicto Lupez's house, to find it
locked up and deserted. They broke in and made a search, but they
couldn't find a dollar, either in Spanish or American money, although
they did find Braxton Bogg's valise and a dozen or more printed bands
of the Hearthstone Saving Institution--the kind of bands they put
around five-hundred-dollar and one-thousand-dollar packages of
bills."

"Then this Spaniard found where Bogg had hidden the money and made off
with it?"

"That is the supposition; and I reckon it's about right, too. Of
course, it may be possible that Braxton Bogg never left the stolen
money in Lupez's house, although he swears he did. He says Lupez was
an old friend of his and was going to have the bills changed into
Spanish money for him, so that Bogg could use the cash without being
suspected of any wrong-doing."

"It's too bad; and just as we thought our fifteen or sixteen thousand
dollars of the amount was safe. I wonder what the bank people at home
will say now."

"Of course, they won't like it. They would rather have the money than
their missing cashier; and I would rather have the money, too--not but
that Braxton Bogg ought to be punished for his crimes."

"Yes, Larry, Braxton Bogg deserves all the law can give him, for the
depositors in the Hearthstone Saving Institution were mostly poor,
hard-working