"I know all about it," explained the captain. "If you will excuse me now I will see you later."
The captain ran down to the boiler-deck and walked around to the outer door of the office, which he entered without ceremony. Both the clerks were there—Walker perched upon a high stool and Murray lying in his bunk with his handkerchief over his wounded eye. They both stared at the captain in great surprise. They had never seen such an expression on his face before.
"Murray," said the captain, without any preliminary remarks, "you might just as well own up. The whole thing is out on you!"
Murray raised himself in his bunk and tried to look astonished, while Walker leaned his elbows on the desk and nodded his head, as if to say that he had been expecting something of this kind.
"The man who saw you put the money and the safe-key into Ackerman's pillow, in your endeavor to fasten this robbery upon him, has made a confession," continued the captain. "I don't wonder that you tremble; I should if I were in your place. You can save yourself trouble by handing out the rest of that three thousand. You've got it, and I know it. If you will do that, I think I can safely promise that Ackerman will let the thing drop right here, and be content to leave you to the punishment of your own guilty conscience."
The chief clerk could not say a word in reply. The rapidity with which the young pilot's vindication had followed upon the heels of his accusation bewildered him. The mysterious disappearance of the money which he had so confidently expected that Walker would find in George's pillow had caused him the most intense alarm, for it told him that somebody had discovered his secret; that somebody had confessed, and it was all over with him.
"There's the money you put into George's pillow when you put the safe-key there," said the captain, handing the envelope and the bills over to Walker, "and I tell you that you will have a time of it if you don't refund the balance. Now, do as you please."
Murray sank back upon his bunk, covered his face with his handkerchief, and without saying a word put his hand into his pocket and drew out a roll of greenbacks. Walker took it and counted it while the captain looked on. There were twenty-seven hundred dollars in it, and that amount, added to the three hundred dollars which the injured darkey had surrendered to the doctor, made up the three thousand dollars that George had been accused of stealing.
"That's all right. Where's the key of the safe? Now," said the captain, as Murray produced it, "vacate this office at once, and leave Walker in charge. Don't come near it again."
The captain left the office and went up to the pilot-house. George and the two pilots were there, and so was the chief engineer, who was laying out some very elaborate plans for establishing George's innocence, which were to be set on foot as soon as they reached St. Louis. When the captain entered, he was saying,