CHAPTER XXVIII.
BREAKING THE FETTERS.
Don actually staggered, and for some moments he was unable to speak a word. To the deputy sheriff the boy’s agitation seemed a confession that he knew all about the matter in question, and so Drew said:
“The hull business has come out, ye see, so you might jest as well tell the truth about it. Of course your father’ll pertect you, but the other feller that passed the check over to Freeport will hev to smart.”
“Why, I don’t know anything about a forged check!” exclaimed Don, in a flutter. “That’s the honest truth, Mr. Drew.”
“Oh, come!” drawled the man. “It ain’t no use to try to squiggle round it. The check come back to the bank to-day, an’ your father was straightenin’ out his accounts this forenoon, so he gut holt of it right off. Reuben Gray, over to Freeport, tuck it, and he sent it over here by Jeff Lander to git it cashed at the bank, as Jeff was comin’ over on business. It was jest a happenstance that your father diskivered it so soon.”
Now Don understood why his father had looked on him with such sad reproach after discovering the crumpled letter in his waste-basket, and the boy was horrified by the knowledge that the doctor suspected him of participating in such a crime. He realized, also, that all this had come about through his association with an evil companion, against whom his father had warned him.
Being entirely innocent in regard to the forged check, Don became both vehement and indignant in his protestations. It was useless for Simeon Drew to try to coax or frighten a confession from him, and the deputy sheriff finally gave over the attempt in disgust.
“It would hev bin better for ye if you’d jest told everything ye knowed about it,” the man declared; “but, anyhow, I’ll hev the other feller nabbed before night.”
As Don continued on his way home, his brain in a whirl over the affair, the whole truth came to him like a flash of light. He recalled the fact that on the evening after the football game at Highland, while he was talking with Bentley in his father’s office, he had caught Leon examining Dr. Scott’s check-book and had angrily ordered the fellow to let it alone.
“He tore a blank check from it then!” palpitated Don. “He is the forger! He could imitate father’s writing, for he faked up that excuse for me. He went to Freeport, Thursday, and when he came home he had lots of money, which he said his aunt had given him for a birthday present.”