Judging that his employer’s suspicions were allayed, Benton ventured to take two five-dollar bills from the till before he went out in the evening. Currency was at that time mixed, and bills, as well as gold and silver, were in circulation.

He left the restaurant at the usual time. It so happened that Grant had something to do and did not go out with him. Benton, therefore, went at once to the gambling-house which he was in the habit of frequenting.

“I’m getting tired of being cooped up in the restaurant day after day,” he said impatiently. “Why can’t I make a strike? If I could scoop in four hundred dollars to-night I would leave Sacramento and go to the mines. Then I might strike it rich and carry home ten thousand dollars, as Grant’s friend did.”

Grant had told him the story of John Heywood’s 169good fortune, and it had impressed him.

“If a clodhopper like that can make a fortune, why shouldn’t I?” he asked himself.

So his purpose to go to the mines and try his luck was strengthened. If he had begun six months before to save money, he would have had enough to start before this, but Albert Benton was one of those who despised small and steady savings, and are always on the lookout to “make a strike,” as he termed it.

“That boy won’t spy on me to-night,” he said to himself. “I must be careful. If the old man knew where I spent my evenings he would smell a rat. I wonder how much I’ve taken from the drawer in the last three months. Fully as much as my wages, I expect. Well, he can stand it. He’s making plenty of money, anyhow.”

It was in this way that he excused his thefts. Yet he felt that he would like to leave the restaurant and put himself in the way of making that fortune for which he yearned.

Though Grant was not in the street to see 170where he went, there was another who quietly noticed his movements and followed his steps. This was John Vincent, the ex-detective. From the first he had suspected Benton and doubted Grant’s guilt. He was a man skilled in physiognomy, and he had studied Benton’s face and formed a pretty accurate estimation of his real character.

“If Benton hasn’t robbed my friend Smithson’s till, then I lose my guess,” he said to himself.

He did not, however, say much of his suspicions to the keeper of the restaurant, who, he saw, was disposed to consider Grant the guilty party. He waited till he had some evidence to offer in confirmation of his theory.

When Benton entered the gambling-house Vincent followed close behind him. Benton saw him, but did not know that he was a special friend of Mr. Smithson.

Vincent placed himself at a neighboring table in such a position that he could watch Benton. He saw him take out one of the bills which he had abstracted from the till, and stake it.

171“What do you put down paper for?” asked a man beside him. “Gold is better.”

“Bills are just as good,” said Benton.

“I will give you gold for bills,” said Vincent. “I want to send some money to the East.”

“All right, and thank you,” said Benton. “Here are two fives.”

“And here are two gold pieces,” said Vincent.

There was a secret look of elation on his face as he received the bills, and furtively noticed a red cross on the back of each. They had been secretly marked by himself as a trap to catch the thief, whoever he might be.

“Now I have you, my man,” he thought. “This is the evidence I have been looking for. It settles the question of Benton’s guilt and Grant’s innocence.”

Vincent played two or three times for slight stakes, and rose from the table after a while neither a loser nor a winner.

He did not go immediately, but staye............