“I think so. I won’t be gone more than a week, but I think, under the circumstances, I should go away until things clear a little.”
“I suppose so, Lee.”
The sheriff thought it would really be a wise thing for Barnhardt to go away for a while, and he said so to Hashknife that evening, when Hashknife stopped at the office for a few minutes. They were discussing the incident at the Double Bar 8, and Hashknife wondered how Barnhardt’s jaw was feeling. The sheriff told of Tex’s bringing a package of money to Lee Barnhardt, and he also told Hashknife what Barnhardt had said about Tex knowing about that shipment of money.
“I wouldn’t tell that to anybody else,” said the sheriff. “But it appears that you’re workin’ on the case, and yuh ought to know about these things.”
“When does Barnhardt intend to leave?” asked Hashknife.
“He didn’t say; but I expect he’ll leave tomorrow. Between me and you, he’s scared of Tex Alden, and he wants to git away for a few days to let Tex cool off. Lee talks too —— much.”
“That’s a human failin’,” smiled Hashknife.
But Lee Barnhardt did not go on any trip. When he got up the following morning he found that some one had opened his safe during the night, and had looted it of everything it contained. The bank did not have a safety vault; so Barnhardt found himself cleaned out, as everything he owned was in his own safe.
He sat down at his desk and stared at the empty valise, which he had brought along and placed beside the safe. His clothes were packed in a larger valise. He seemed stunned, his vacant gaze fixed upon the half-open door of the safe.
The fruits of two years’ work had been in that safe, when he locked the office the night before. He had never feared a robbery, because a lawyer’s safe usually only held papers, of no value to any one, except to the lawyer.