“Yes, but he doesn’t look to me like a thief. It may be, after all, that we are doing less business.”
“Yes, sir; that’s very likely,” responded Benton, glad that his employer was disposed to regard the matter from this point of view.
“I don’t like to think that any one in my employ would rob me.”
“Very true, sir. It would be a great shame.”
“It’s all right!” thought Benton complacently. “It is better so. I don’t care to have the boy discharged. Some one might succeed him whom I couldn’t hoodwink so easily.”
CHAPTER XX.
BENTON IS TRAPPED.
Judging that his employer’s suspicions were allayed, Benton ventured to take two five-dollar bills from the till before he went out in the evening. Currency was at that time mixed, and bills, as well as gold and silver, were in circulation.
He left the restaurant at the usual time. It so happened that Grant had something to do and did not go out with him. Benton, therefore, went at once to the gambling-house which he was in the habit of frequenting.
“I’m getting tired of being cooped up in the restaurant day after day,” he said impatiently. “Why can’t I make a strike? If I could scoop in four hundred dollars to-night I would leave Sacramento and go to the mines. Then I might strike it rich and carry home ten thousand dollars, as Grant’s friend did.”
Grant had told him the story of John Heywood’s good fortune, and it had impressed him.