The boy stooped, and from beneath the pile of old carpet and blankets in one corner of the vault drew out a small tin box filled with a number of documents, which he emptied upon the table among a mass of broken dishes, bread and scraps of meat, with which the table was already covered.
"There dey am," said Barney, triumphantly. "You've been kind to me, Mister Mansfield, and I'm not the feller to go back on you. The boss of de gang dropped 'em, an' me an' Sandy picked 'em up. An' we didn't say nuthin' to them two sick bats, Jim Morrow an' Ed Wilson, about our find, an' now I'm mighty glad of it, too."
The box was marked "Webster National Bank" in black letters painted upon its side.
Instantly Frank recognized it as a box filled with various private documents, intrusted for safe-keeping to the bank, which he had often seen quietly reposing within the rifled vault.
And his heart bounded for joy as he gazed upon it.
If these boys, whoever and whatever they might be, had witnessed the robbery, then with the aid of their testimony, and this box to corroborate it, he would have no trouble in proving his own innocence before the world.
"Speak, Barney!" he exclaimed, eagerly. "What place is this—what do you know of the robbery of the bank? Tell me all about it, and tell me slowly, so that I may be able to understand."
"Well, den, Mister Mansfield, it's jest like dis," replied the bootblack, with the air of one who had suddenly attained greatness, and was fully aware of it, his companions gazing admiringly at him as he spoke.
"Fust we fellers are wot dey call de 'bats in de wall,' or, in plain United States, a lot of chaps wot find it more convenient to live in dis here snug little hole than to sleep on the trucks when the winter-time comes on. Ter-night, as Sandy an' me an' another feller was a-comin' in from the thayter, we happened to see three fellers a-comin' out of the side door of the bank."
"The Webster Bank?" cried Frank, trembling with excitement.