As he selected the big brown envelope marked "Martin & Company," and bearing the express company's shining green seals, his fingers tingled. The immensity of the sum intrusted to his charge perturbed him a trifle.
Bart relocked the safe, stowed the envelope in an inner pocket, and opened the drawer of a little stand leaning against the safe.
He took out a revolver. Mr. Leslie himself had advised him to always have one handy in the express office. Bart had never touched the weapon before. It had been loaned him by Mr. Haven, and Darry had brought it to the office. Bart slipped it now into a side pocket.
He noticed in detail the entry on the messenger's slip. The prepaid charges on the Martin & Company consignment were seven dollars and seventy-five cents, or five cents for every hundred dollars or fraction of it over the first fifty dollars, which was charged for at regular tariff rates, twenty-five cents.
"It is fifteen thousand dollars, right enough!" mused Bart. "Now, to make sure of the form of receipt."
He filled out a special receipt that acknowledged besides the usual delivery, a verification of the amount of the inclosure, its acceptance as correct, and left a blank for the names of two witnesses.
Bart was now ready to sally forth on his peculiar errand, and had fully decided in his mind the persons he would get to act as his witnesses.
"What is that!" he questioned, suddenly and sharply.
He could hear a springy vehicle bound over the near tracks, and then its wheels cut the loose cindered road leading up to the express office.
It halted. He could catch the quick, labored breathing of two horses, a carriage door creaked! some low voices made a brief hum of conversation, and the vehicle seemed to depart.