district
resided.

"Get over to the bank, will you, Brennan?" Harding said as he entered
the station. "You'll have your hands full this time. There's been a
robbery during the night, and all the cash cleared out."

"What's that, Mr. Harding? The bank robbed? You don't mean it!"

"Go and ask Eustace; he'll give you all the details. It's floored him.
Hurry over, there's a good chap. I'm on my way to the post office to
wire to the head office; I can't stay now."

Ten minutes later the news was known from one end of the township to the
other, and was travelling in every direction through the bush to the
outlying stations and selections.

The farther it travelled the more astounding it became, and yet the form
in which Brennan telegraphed it to his Inspector showed it to be
sufficiently startling and mysterious.

When the reports had been wired away, Eustace recalled an incident he
had forgotten in the excitement of the initial discovery.

During the evening, soon after sunset, a stranger called at the bank. He
came to the private entrance where he was seen by Eustace, who described
him as a well-built man of medium height, with sandy hair and beard and,
by appearance, an ordinary bushman. He said he had come in from a
distant station with a cheque he wanted to cash, but as the bank was
closed for the day, Eustace told him he would have to come again in the
morning. He had gone, mounting his horse and riding away in the
direction of the hotel where stockmen usually congregated.

Brennan went to the hotel in search of him, but no one knew anything
about him there, nor had anyone else seen him either in or out of the
township.

"But he must have been seen," Eustace exclaimed impatiently, when
Brennan returned to the bank with the news. "He must have been seen. He
could not have vanished."

"Did anyone else see him besides you when he called?" Brennan asked.

"No, I was passing the front door at the moment he came. No one else saw
him, so far as I know. But he must have been seen in the township. He
must have gone to the hotel."

They were standing in the bank office, Brennan on one side of the
counter, Harding and Eustace on the other.

"You didn't see him?" Brennan asked, looking at Harding.

"No, I didn't see him," Harding answered.

"But you heard me speak to someone--I came into the dining-room and told
you it was a man who wanted a cheque cashed," Eustace exclaimed.

"That's right," Harding said quiet