ed the
coin to the Governor.

"What d'ye think of that?" he asked.

The Governor turned the gold disk to the light and then flung it sharply
on the wooden end of the counter, where it rang musically. He handed it
back with a smile.

"The real thing, all right! Wish I had a couple of million just like
it."

"It's a good thing you haven't!" the man remarked with a grin.

He resumed his talk with the clerk, speaking in a low tone, while the
Governor loitered at the magazine counter. Archie went to the desk for
their keys and received a bundle of mail for Mr. Saulsbury, who walked
slowly toward him apparently absorbed in the periodical he had
purchased.

"It doesn't seem possible we can lose!" he said when they reached their
rooms. "There will be cross-currents yet; but a strong tide has set in,
bearing us on."

He threw the magazine with well-directed aim into a desk in the corner,
and meditatively smoothed his hat on his sleeve.

"That chap was Dobbs, a Government specialist in counterfeiters, and
that twenty-dollar piece had almost the true ring, but not quite. The
man who turned it out showed me the difference only yesterday. Perky?
Certainly! He said Eliphalet Congdon had taken a bagful to pass on the
unwary. The old boy had changed a lot of them in New England and the
Government is not ignoring the matter. Eliphalet Congdon presents just
such a case as we find occasionally where some perfectly sound
conservative country banker feels the call of the wild and does a loop
of death in high finance."

"You don't think old man Congdon has been here lately?" asked Archie.

"Only a day or two ago! I picked that up while I was buying my magazine.
Congdon bought some stogies at the cigar stand and changed that twenty.
We're all loaded for Eliphalet, Archie. After you told me your kidnaping
story, I telegraphed to Perky for all the possible places where the old
man might be. Perky has ranged the country with him and from his data we
can keep tab on the old boy. Dobbs knows nothing of the kidnaping; it's
the gold piece that interests him. I overheard enough to know we're on
the right track. Eliphalet Congdon owns a farm in Ohio. Perky spent a
month there boring out gold pieces. What we've got to do, Archie, is to
find the Congdon child and turn her over to your Isabel and my Ruth. A
very pretty job, demanding our best attention."

He paced the floor for a moment, his hands thrust deep in his trousers
pockets, his s