And right here, we may add something that the reader ought to know, and that Gus never found out. When Sam met Gus going into the bank, his suspicions were aroused, and he stood in front of the window and watched his movements. He thought that Gus was going to deposit the wages he had just received, instead of paying up his debts, as he ought to have done; but when he saw him present the check, mentioned in the letter he had stolen, Sam knew that Gus was making arrangements to leave the city very shortly. He saw that Gus did not receive the money, and that he did not bring the check out with him; so it must have been left in the bank for collection.
The rest of the boy’s plans Sam guessed at. He knew that Gus was very discontented; that he thought he would rather follow any business in the world than his own; that he imagined he would be happier anywhere on earth than he was in Foxboro’; that Mr. Robbins would never permit his son to go to Texas on a visit, especially to meet such a fellow as Ned Ackerman, whose influence over his associates was always a bad one. Sam knew all these things, and by putting them together, he arrived at a conclusion which we know to be the correct one.
“That’s Sam’s game,” thought Gus, swelling with indignation. “He intends to hold that letter over me as a sort of whip to make me do just as he says; but it’ll not succeed. He knows everything, and I must mind what I am about. The first thing I do will be to take what belongs to me.”
Gus came a step nearer to the box, intending to snatch the letter and walk off with it, leaving Sam to help himself if he could; but after an instant’s reflection he decided to adopt a different course. It would not be wise, he thought, to bring on an open rupture with Sam, for the latter might pay him back by telling his employer about his son’s Texas scheme, and that was something that must be kept from his father’s ears at all hazards.
“That would never do,” said Gus, as these thoughts passed through his mind. “I must wait until he turns his back.”
This Sam was accommodating enough to do in a very few minutes. As soon as he had taken an armful of bales out of the box he had just opened, he picked them up, carried them into the store and laid them on the counter. He was gone scarcely more than half a minute, but that was all the time Gus needed to accomplish his object. He seized the letter, thrust it into his own pocket and walked out into the store, feeling as though a heavy load had been removed from his shoulders. He fully expected that Sam would make trouble for him very shortly, and he prepared himself for it; but Sam did nothing of the kind. When he discovered his loss he probably thought that he had mislaid the letter or that it had dropped out of his pocket. At any rate he said nothing to Gus about it.
Gus wrote a long letter to Ned that night, telling him of all the bad luck that had befallen him of late, and describing his plans for the future, and then he settled back into his old monotonous life again. The store had never looked so dreary and uninviting as it did now, and neither had his work ever been so distasteful to him. Gus never could have endured it, so he told himself more than once, if he had not been sustained and encouraged by the belief that it would end in a very few days, and that when once he was away from home and could do as he pleased, he would have fun enough to make up for all the gloomy hours he had spent behind the counter.
After the second week had passed Gus made it a point to call at the bank every few days to see if his check had been heard from, and when he came out he always found that Sam, who went to his meals at the same time Gus did, was loitering on the sidewalk in front of the window.
“Let him watch,” thought Gus, who grew angry whenever he caught even the smallest glimpse of Sam. “If I am not smart enough to outwit him I ought to lose every cent of that money.”
“I wonder what’s the matter?” thought Sam, when he saw Gus go into the bank and come out again with the very long face he always wore when he was disappointed. “They ought certainly to have heard from that check by this time. Well, there’s one thing about it: Gus can’t get the money without my knowing it, because the only time he can get into the bank is when he goes to his dinner, and I shall always be on hand to watch him.”