"I'm certainly a hot favorite with you." He clambered stiffly back into bed and turned his defiant face to the wall, nor would he meet his accuser's eyes or open his lips, even when Boyd flung out of the room, convinced that he was the culprit.
All that day Emerson waited fearfully for some word from Hilliard, but night came without it; and when several days in succession had passed without a sign from the banker, he breathed more easily. He had already begun to assure himself that, after all, the exposure would have no effect, when one evening the call he dreaded came. A telephone message summoned him to the bank at eleven o'clock the following morning.
"That means trouble," he grimly told George.
"Maybe not," the big fisherman replied. "If Hilliard took any stock in the story, it seems like he'd have jumped you the next day."
"Our machinery is ordered. You realize what it will mean if he backs water now?"
"Sure! We'll have to go to some other bank."
"Humph! I'll wring Fraser's neck," muttered Emerson. "We have troubles enough without any new ones."
It was with no little anxiety that he asked for the banker at the appointed hour, and was shown into an anteroom, with the announcement:
"Mr. Hilliard is busy; he wishes you to wait."
Inside the glass partition Boyd heard a woman's voice and Hilliard's laughter. He took some comfort in the thought that the banker was in a good-humor, at least; but, being too nervous to sit still, he stood at the window, gazing with vacant eyes at the busy street crowds. Facing him, across the way, was a bulletin-board in front of a newspaper office; and, after a time, he noted idly among its various items of information the announcement that the mail steamer Queen had arrived at midnight from Skagway. He wondered why Cherry had not written. Surely she must be anxious to know his progress. He should have advised her of his whereabouts.