"That boy evidently suspects me," thought Renwick Bates, contracting his forehead. "He is altogether too smart. With the help of his uncle, whose suspicions are already excited, he may make me trouble. I must take a bold course, and make the accusations look ridiculous."

Squire Bates kept on his way till he reached Rockmount, and drove at once to the office of Thomas Marks.

"How do you do, Squire Bates?" asked the agent politely.

"Very well, thank you. I suppose you have heard of the robbery?"

"To what do you allude?"

"Adin Dunham was stopped on his way home yesterday, and robbed of a thousand dollars!"

"You don't mean it?" returned the agent. "Why I paid him that money with my own hands."

"So I supposed. Why didn't you give him a check?"

"He preferred the bills. Besides, as you have no bank at Waterford, he could have done nothing with the check."

"That is true; I didn't think of that. But it's a pity as it happened."

"Can you tell me any of the details of the robbery?"

"I talked with Dean Dunham, the nephew, only this morning. I have not seen Adin himself."

"What does the boy say?"

Squire Bates repeated what he had heard from Dean, though he might have gone more into details from his own knowledge. This, of course, he could not venture upon.

"It seems extraordinary," said Thomas Marks, thoughtfully. "How could the robber have known that Adin Dunham had received any money?"

"He might have seen him at your office."

"I don't pay money to every one that calls upon me," said Marks, smiling.

"No, or I should call for my installment," returned the squire jocosely. "Perhaps it might have been some one connected with the hotel company. I suppose they knew the money was to be called for to-day?"

"Yes."

"By the way, in what shape did you pay the money?"

"You mean in bills of what denomination?"

"Yes."

"In fifty-dollar bills."

"Twenty fifties then?"

"Yes."

"That information may prove important. Were the bills all on one bank?"

"No, from several. Some, I think, were silver certificates."

"If this had happened in England the numbers of the notes would have been noted."

"Exactly. That is one advantage the English detectives have over ours. May I ask if you have been retained by Adin Dunham to work out the case?"

"No; I haven't even seen him since the robbery, but as he is a neighbor I naturally take an interest in the affair. If I can do anything to ferret out the thief, or recover the money, I will do so gladly, and it shall cost Dunham nothing."

"Your words do you credit, Squire Bates," said the agent, warmly.

"I think I have misjudged Bates. He is a better man than I gave him credit for," reflected Thomas Marks.

"I sympathize with the poor man heartily," continued the squire, following up the favorable impression which he could see that he had made. "A thousand dollars is a fortune to him. To us, Mr. Marks, it would not be so important."

"Speak for yourself, squire. I am by no means a millionaire."

"Nor I," rejoined Squire Bates, laughing. "The assessors of Waterford would be glad if I were."

"Still I don't think you are in any danger of going to the poor house," continued the agent.

"Well, no, perhaps not. But I must be getting home. I suppose you will warn the merchants here to look out for any fifty-dollar bills that may be offered them."

"Yes; it is a good suggestion. I don't think, however, that the robber will be apt to spend his money in this neighborhood."

"I presume not. From all I can gather he is a wandering tramp, who possibly only expected to get a few dollars, and will probably be quite bewildered when he finds what a haul he has made."

"I hope for poor Dunham's sake he will be found out."

"Amen to that!" said Squire Bates, with a queer smile.

"What a droll world it is!" soliloquized the lawyer as he turned his horse's head towards Waterford. "How that worthy Marks would have been astonished if he had known that the bold and audacious robber had been holding a conversation with him! I must send away those fifty-dollar notes. Their use in this neighborhood would be suicidal.

"I think my call upon this man Marks is a clever stroke!" the squire complacently continued musing to himself. "I must venture upon a still bolder, stroke, and call upon Adin Dunham, though under the circumstances I feel rather nervous about it. If that young Dean were out of the way I should feel more comfortable. It may be necessary to get rid of him, but that can wait. I understand from my boy Brandon that Dean treated him very disrespectfully, not to say insolently, only yesterday. As Brandon truly remarks, the boy is as proud as he is poor, and doesn't know his place. A working boy occupies an humble position, and owes deference to his superiors in station. I might have him arrested for taking possession of Brandon's boat by violence, but at present it would not be politic. Our turn will come after a while, and then Dean Dunham must look out!"

When Squire Bates reached Waterford he drove to the house of Adin Dunham. Dean was standing in the yard.

"Please hold my horse, Dean," said the squire pleasantly, "I am going to call upon your uncle."

"I don't know whether he can see you, sir," said Dean, doubtfully.

"At any rate I can ask. I called on Mr. Marks, from whom your uncle received the money."

"Did you learn anything, sir?"

"Yes, I learned that the money was paid in fifty-dollar bills—just twenty of them. You can see that this is important. If any one in this neighborhood offers a fifty-dollar bill in payment for any article it should be investigated."

"Yes, sir."

Dean regarded the squire with a puzzled expression. He seemed to take so much interest in the matter of the robbery, to be so desirous of throwing obstacles in the way of the thief, that Dean began to think his suspicions unwarranted. Yet there was his uncle's description of the robber, and again there was the tell-tale sleeve button in his pocket.

"It beats me!" was Dean's conclusion. "Things may clear up, but at present it seems particularly foggy."

"Please ask your aunt if I may see Mr. Dunham," said the squire. "I will tie the horse."

Dean went in and proffered the request, adding, "Squire Bates has just returned from Rockmount, where he had an interview with the man who gave uncle the money. He says it was all in fifty-dollar bills."

"I don't know," said Mrs. Dunham, doubtfully. "Perhaps it may be as well to let the squire go in. We ought to be doin' somethin' to catch the thief, and the squire's a lawyer."

So it happened that without notification to Dunham she entered the sick room followed by the squire.

"Adin, I've brought Squire Bates to see you," she said soothingly.

Instantly Dunham became excited and manifested alarm.

"Take him away!" he cried, apparently warding off an attack with his hands. "He is the man that robbed me!"

The squire was prepared for this, and he had decided what to do.

"What!" he exclaimed in a tone of concern, "is poor Dunham's mind affected?"

"Yes, I fear the shock was too much for him," said Mrs. Dunham, sorrowfully. "What in the world should have put such an idea into his head?"

"I tell you he is the man that robbed me!" exclaimed Adin Dunham. "I know him by those long teeth. Give me back my thousand dollars, Squire Bates!" he continued piteously. "They were all I had."

"Poor man! I am inexpressibly shocked. I see that my presence excites him, and I will go."

"I hope you will excuse his words, squire. He doesn't know what he says."

"Yes, he does, and he means it too. That man knew I was to bring back a large sum of money, and he lay in wait for me."

"I had better go, I think," said the squire nervously.

Mrs. Dunham followed him from the room, continuing her apologies.

"Don't say a word, my dear madam," said the squire in a sympathetic tone. "I feel for you, indeed I do. To prove it, I will head a subscription to make up to your husband a part of his loss. I will put down fifty dollars."

"You are very kind, Squire Bates. How can I thank you?"

"Don't thank me at all, but rest assured that I will do all I can for Mr. Dunham, notwithstanding his strange delusion respecting myself."

"That's clever stroke number two," thought the squire, as he rode homeward. "I think I have thoroughly disarmed suspicion now."