is they proceeded to do. They've admitted it under
oath--after I had shown them what we could do to them if they didn't."

"Whitredge began to plan for that very thing almost at the first," I put
in. "It was he who put the idea of running way into my head."

"Sure he did. But speaking of affidavits, I have another; from a fellow
named Griggs; you remember him, of course,--your understudy in Geddis's
bank at the time when you were bookkeeper and cashier? He swears that
the original stock certificates in 'The Great Oro' were made out in the
name of Abel Geddis--as you know they were--and that on a certain night
just previous to your arrest, when he had been working late and had gone
to the back room for his hat and coat, Geddis and Whitredge came in and
Geddis opened the vault. Are you paying attention?"

I was choking with impatience, as he well knew, but he refused to be
hurried.

"All in good time," he chuckled. "I'm coming to it by littles. Griggs
was curious to know what was going on and he played the spy. He saw
Geddis's name taken out of the stock certificates with an acid and your
name written in its place. You see, they were confidently counting upon
'getting' you through Geddis's daughter and were framing things up to
fit. How much or how little they took the young woman into their
confidence I don't know."

"That doesn't matter now," I hastened to say.

"No; Griggs was the man I wanted, and I got him. He will testify in
court, if he is obliged to. He would have done it at the time if Geddis
and Whitredge hadn't discovered him and scared him stiff with a threat to
put him in the prisoner's dock with you, as an accomplice. After I had
secured Griggs's affidavit I wanted one more thing, and I got it--bought
it. That was a map of the Lawrenceburg underground workings, corrected
up to date. I knew Geddis and Withers must have one, and by a piece of
great good luck I found a young surveyor's clerk who had made a tracing
for Geddis from one of Blackwell's blue-prints. He had spoiled his first
attempt by spilling a bottle of ink on it, so he made another. He didn't
see any reason why he shouldn't sell me the spoiled copy."

"I know what you are going to say!" I shouted.

"I imagine you do," he laughed. "The Lawrenceburg workings have never
gone downhill at all. They've been burrowing in the opposite direction
all the time, and according to their own map they never touched pay-ore
until they c