"You shall," he replied.
Within half an hour Johnson had vanished in a buckboard and a cloud of fine white dust.
Upon the following afternoon I made an alarming discovery. Our burglar-proof safe had been opened, and the roll of notes was missing. I sought Ajax and told him. He allowed one word only to escape his lips--
"Johnson!"
"What tenderfeet we are!" I groaned.
"Lineal descendants of the Good Samaritan. Well, he has had a long start, but we must catch him."
"If it should not be--Johnson?"
"Conan would have nailed anybody else."
This was unanswerable, for Conan guarded our safe whenever there was anything in it worth guarding. Ajax never is so happy as when he can prove himself a prophet.
"I said he was an artist," he remarked. "The truth is, we tried an experiment upon the wrong man."