Piloted by the former Cresville resident, our friends entered the bank. A scene of confusion greeted them. The officers and clerks of the institution were hurrying to and fro with books and papers, and from the president’s room came the murmur of voices.
“The directors are having a meeting to decide what to do,” explained Mr. Thompson. “Likely they’ll offer a big reward. I’d like to pull it down myself, but the detectives will probably get this job. They ought to offer at least five thousand for the recovery of the sixty thousand.”
“Sixty thousand? They got more than that!” exclaimed a policeman in uniform who nodded to Mr. Thompson and the boys in a friendly fashion.
“More than that?” repeated our heroes’ friend in surprise.
“Sure. The sixty was mostly in paper money—bills of big denomination, and a lot of double eagles—they left the silver scattered around. Probably it was too heavy to carry, though there was plenty of it. But they took a hundred and fifty thousand dollars more in negotiable securities—stocks, bonds and so on.”
“A hundred and fifty thousand!” gasped Bob.
“Two hundred and ten thousand dollars in all!” half-whispered Ned. “That was a haul!”
“Come on over this way, and I’ll show you where they took it from,” proceeded Mr. Thompson, and the boys followed. They halted in front of a massive safe, built into the wall in the form of a vault, and a scene of ruin met their eyes.
The big doors were shattered and twisted, and one had been completely torn from the hinges and lay on the floor. The inner doors, of less weight, had also been blown open. Even yet books and papers, and many silver coins, lay scattered about, the clerks not yet having had time to pick them up.
“It was a good job all right,” explained the former Cresville man;—“that is, good from a burglar’s standpoint, though they used more juice than they needed to.”