So a roll of brand-new bills was handed to him, and he examined them one by one with the utmost care.
"There are two hundred dollars here," he said at length. "Is this Binney's share of the reward as well as your own?"
"No. I had a hundred-dollar bill, and Mr. Caspar seeing it, asked if I would mind taking small bills for it, as he wanted one of that amount to send off by mail; so, of course, I let him have it."
"Oh, my children! my children!" murmured Billy Brackett, "why will you persist in attempting to travel through this wicked world without a guardian? Of all the scrapes from which I have been called to rescue you, this might have proved the most serious."
"I don't see how," said both Glen and Binney.
Winn knew, and he smiled a little self-complacent smile as he reflected, "This is a little worse than any mess I ever got into."
"You would have seen quickly enough if you had tried to spend this money," said Billy Brackett, "for you would undoubtedly have been arrested on the charge of counterfeiting. Those same fellows put Winn here in that fix a short time since, besides getting away with a thousand dollars' worth of wheat that he had in charge, and now they have come very near serving you the same trick."
Here Winn's smile faded away rather suddenly, while Glen exclaimed,
"Do you mean to say that these bills are counterfeit?"
"I do," replied Billy Brackett; "and if you doubt it, take them to the first bank you come across and ask the cashier."