rect.

"Bring me the silver, will you?" he said; "I might as well check
everything while I am at it."

Evan brought several bags from the safe, and stood by while Penton
opened them. When they came to the bag of quarters that had been left
under the table for an hour the previous day, they made a discovery.
At least Evan did. He found a package of one hundred dollars missing.

"What!" exclaimed Penton.

"Yes, there were five yesterday when I opened the bag, and I just took
one out. There are only three here now."

The teller felt his head throb. Penton grinned sceptically.

"My dear man," he said, "you're mixed. The money was only left out for
an hour, you say. No one was in here but myself."

Evan felt a chill. He was just as sure Penton had stolen one of those
hundred dollar packages as he was that one had been stolen.

"Check your blotter," went on the manager, with a strange accent and a
fearful glow in his colorless eye; "you couldn't possibly have paid out
an extra hundred in silver. Good G----! man, you're crazy."

Mechanically the teller went over the additions in his blotter. That
was always the first thing to do in a cash difference that looked like
a mistake in addition. The blotter was found correct. Next came the
vouchers. Penton worked assiduously on them with the teller. His mind
somewhat clarified by checking, Evan began to think. Penton had said
it was impossible to pay out one hundred dollars too much over the
counter in silver--as it was. If he could trace the silver back to
when the cash had been checked before, the difference could easily be
located in the silver. He offered the suggestion. The manager made a
gesture of impatience.

"I tell you," he said, "there must be a mistake somewhere; either in
your work, or else you paid out one hundred dollars too much in bills
and--you've been counting the silver wrong for days or weeks, that's
it!"

Nelson knew he had not. Fortunately for him the manager had checked
the cash a week before, and initialed it as correct. While Penton
followed with his eyes, Evan ran over his cash-statement book, showing
the decrease in silver each day to be about twenty-five dollars.
Market days always took about one hundred and twenty-five dollars. But
there was a falling off between Monday and Tuesday this week of two
hundred and twenty-eight dollars.

Penton stared glassily a moment, as the boys had often seen him do.
Then his cunning cam