"Wacker! Wacker!" gasped Colonel Harrington in affright, "don't—don't hurt him. This is dreadful—"
"Shut up!" ordered Lem Wacker recklessly, "you want something and don't know how to get it. I do—and will."
He snatched at Bart's tightly-buttoned coat and tore it loose, groped inside and drew out a package.
"I've got it," he announced. "No!—he ripped off the end of the parcel—here's a haul."
Bart writhed, choked on the loose strangling filaments of cotton, but could not utter a word.
"Give me that package!" cried the colonel. "Stop! where are you going?"
Lem Wacker had bolted. The colonel stared in marveling astonishment as his cohort sprang through the open doorway. Bart had managed to wad the cotton in his mouth into a compact wet mass, enabling him to speak.
"Colonel Harrington!" he cried, "that man has not got the package you were after. He has instead stolen a money envelope for Martin & Company containing fifteen thousand dollars in currency, and is making off with it. Cut this rope instantly that I may pursue him, or I give you my word that, as a partner in his crime, rich as you are, and influential as you are, you shall go to the State penitentiary."