THE bookkeeper of the S & M mine had worked for an hour after the miners had quit work, balancing his books for the day. All of the other clerks had left the office. He had closed the big ledger and had drawn a sigh of relief. Just then the office door opened and a tall athletic young man entered. He approached the bookkeeper and extended his hand. "My name is King." "My name is Watson. Are you stopping in the camp, Mr. King?"
"I expect to be here but a short time. How is the mining business?"
"Not much activity just now in this section. Some of the old mines are shut down and there is but little prospecting being done. Are you interested in the mining business?"
"No, not particularly."
"There is a small mine near here that could be purchased at a bargain. A couple of crooks got the old man who owns it in debt to them and took a mortgage on the mine. The old man is very illiterate and did not understand the contracts that he had with these men. He is forced to sell to save himself. If he loses all that he has in this mine it is quite likely that he will be ruined for life, as he is too old to come back. I would be very sorry to see anything like that happen."
"It's a shame that there are individuals who will stoop to crookedness to beat men who are along in years out of the savings of a lifetime."
"Back in my home town——"
"What is your home town?" asked Watson, interrupting King.
"Wilford Springs. I was going to tell you about a man by the name of Babcock who used to own the controlling interest in a bank at Zala. (Watson gave a start and his face whitened.) This man Babcock was in some sort of a deal with a banker in Wilford Springs. One night the Wilford Springs banker, whose name is Jim Stover, went to Zala and had a conference with Babcock. The next day Babcock turned the bank over to him. That afternoon Babcock was injured in an automobile accident, and that night his cashier disappeared." (The bookkeeper became very nervous. He got up, poked the fire and then came back to his desk and sat down. He clasped his hands together to hold them from shaking.)
"Did Babcock recover from the accident?"
"Not fully. He suffers a great deal from a pain in his head at times, and he has no memory of anything that happened before the accident in which he was injured."
"You say he can't remember anything that happened before he was injured?"
"No, not a thing."
"Can he remember things that have happened since he was hurt?"
"Yes, that is the strange part about his condition. He can remember everything that has transpired since he was injured as well as the average person."
"Very strange indeed," Watson commented.
"When his daughter Ruth inquired about the business Stover informed her that he had purchased her father's bank stock. When she asked about the money she was told by Stover that her father had owed him an amount of money equal to the stock and he had taken it to help her father out."
"This Stover claimed that Babcock was indebted to him?"
"Yes. Babcock has been trying to remember what became of his money. He thinks that he has recalled the combination to the safe and that the man to whom he showed the combination robbed him."
"I must be going. My wife will be waiting supper for me. I would like to talk longer with you. Could you come back to the office later in the evening?"
"Yes, I can come any time."
"How will eight o'clock be?"
"That will be all right."
When Watson reached his little cottage at the edge of the mining camp, his wife, a slender, blue-eyed girl scarcely twenty years of age, met him on the porch. "Dick, you are late tonight. I have been waiting dinner for twenty minutes. Why, what is the matter?" she asked, noticing that he had a worried look on his face. "Are you ill?"
"No, just worried," he replied.
"What has gone wrong?"
"I will tell you after a while."
"Come on in and get ready for dinner, then. Father is restless this evening. I think this damp weather is affecting him. It seems like he always breathes harder when the weather is damp."
The evening meal passed in silence except that John Hinds, Mrs. Watson's father, who was a consumptive, talked about the damp atmosphere and its unpleasant effects on his breathing apparatus and expressed thanks that there were but few damp days in Arizona. Watson answered his father-in-law in an absent-minded way. Mrs. Watson was worried because her husband could not eat, consequently she had no appetite.
After the meal was over John Hinds went into the living room, leaving Watson and his wife alone in the dining room. An hour later when Watson left the house his wife's eyes were red with crying. "It's awful," she said, "but I suppose it must be done."
When he reached the mine office he found King waiting for him at the door.
"Waiting for me! Am I late?"
"I think I am a little ahead of time.
"It's a little damp and chilly," Harold remarked, when they had entered the office and he had removed his top coat.
"Yes, and damp weather is rather unusual in this country."
"So I have been told."
The bookkeeper took a seat at his desk and Harold King seated himself opposite.
"I was much interested in the story you were telling me about that Zala banker," Watson began. "You say that Stover claimed that Babcock owed him and that he took the bank stock to settle the debt?"
"Yes."
Watson took a box of cigarettes from his pocket and offered the box to Harold.
"No, thank you, I do not use them."
"This is one of my bad habits," Watson explained, as he took a cigarette from the box and lighted it. "I usually smoke a package a day, and some days, when anything worries me, I use two packages. You spoke of the cashier's leaving the night of the same day that Babcock was injured. What is your opinion? Do you think that this cashier robbed Babcock or was an accomplice in robbing him?"
"No, I don't think that; but I think that this cashier can give some valuable information."
"Well, you are right. I am that cashier."
"I knew that. I came here on purpose to see you."
"You did! How did you locate me?"
"I located you by means of the eye of the Invisible Empire."
"What! You located me through the Ku Klux Klan?"
"Yes, I had three million secret service men looking for you."
"I have heard that there are some Klansmen here, but I do not know any of them."
"One never knows when the Invisible Eye is on him. Your employer, or fellow employee, may be a Knight of the Ku Klux Klan and you never suspect it."
"You have located me all right, what do you want?"
"I want the inside information of how Babcock was robbed."
Watson threw away the stub of his cigarette and lighted another, at which he took several strong pulls before he replied.
"I am going to tell you the whole story. I shall keep back nothing. I was employed in the Zala bank only a short time. I bought out my predecessor. I purchased his three thousand dollars' worth of stock in order to secure the job. I did not have quite enough money, and he gave me time on four hundred dollars. Mr. Babcock and I got on splendidly together. In eight months I had paid off the indebtedness on my stock.
"Mr. Babcock was the leader of one political faction in Zala. The faction of which he was leader was victorious in the city election. Babcock was elected city treasurer. As treasurer he became the custodian of fifty thousand dollars, which he deposited in his own bank. The opposing political faction started a second bank and made plans to put Babcock out of business. They circulated the report that his bank was in a failing condition.
"When Mr. Babcock heard the report that was being circulated he attempted to counteract it. Every evening after banking hours he would get in his car and drive until nine or ten o'clock, talking with farmers, telling them that the report that his bank was in a failing condition was a malicious attack started on him by his political enemies. However, there was considerable alarm among many of the farmers who had money in his bank.
"Friday afternoon he said to me, 'I fear that the farmers will make a run on the bank tomorrow. There are always a lot of country folk in town on Saturday. There are some of these farmers who are alarmed—fear spreads rapidly in a crowd. I must be prepared. You take my car and drive to Wilford Springs and borrow thirty thousand dollars from Jim Stover to tide us over.'
"I took plenty of collateral and did as directed. Stover pumped me as to the condition of the bank and elicited from me the information that Babcock had fifty thousand dollars of the city funds in his own bank unsecured in any way.
"After hearing my request for a loan, he said, 'I will go down with you this evening and fix Babcock up all right.' That evening he loaded ............