"My arrest!" stammered Roy, "why you must be mad. What on earth do I know about it?"
"Nothin', only you happened to hev' a marked bill in your pocket t'other day," shot out the sheriff, triumphantly. "Fanning Harding step forward. What do you know about this?"
"Only this, that Miss Regina Mortlake after the automobile accident found a wallet belonging to Roy Prescott in the roadway. She opened it and discovered that it contained a marked twenty-dollar bill answering the description of one of the bills stolen from the Galloway farm house. She made me a witness of the find, and in line with my duty as a citizen, I thought it best to expose the thief, and——."
Fanning stopped and turned pale as a boyish figure sprang toward him with doubled fists. He shrank back, turning a sickly yellow.
"You contemptible sneak!" shouted Jimsy, whose fists it had been that threatened Fanning.
"Sheriff, I claim protection," said the cowardly youth, shrinking behind the official.
"Now, no fisticuffs here," warned the sheriff, "my only duty now is to preserve order and arrest Roy Prescott on a charge of grand larceny."
Peggy turned white and sick. The veranda floor seemed to heave up and down like sea waves under her feet. But in the next few seconds she regained control of herself.
"Why such a charge is absurd," she declared vehemently, "this is simply spite on the part of our rivals in the aeroplane business."
"Don't know nuthin' about that," reiterated the sheriff, stolidly, "the warrant has bin sworn out an' it's my duty ter execute it. Constable, arrest that boy. Ef his foot is too bad hurt to walk, git a rig an' drive him in ter town."