But the clerk lingered. “Mr. Walton,” he began, falteringly, “I never have refused to obey your orders, but Fred ain't quite as bad as—really, you oughtn't to handle the boy that way. He's been a good friend to me, and I'd hate to think I'd stand by and see you take a step like this, mad as you are, when if you'd only be calm a minute, surely you'd realize—”
“Am I the head of this bank or you?” old Walton broke in, as he rose and stood quivering and clinging with both hands to the back of his unsteady chair. “Go and do as I tell you, or, by the God over our heads, I'll send you about your business!”.
“All right, Mr. Walton,” the clerk yielded, “I'll do it!”
White as death could have made him, Lassiter passed out at a door on the side of the building and gained the street without being seen by the workers in the counting-room.
“Poor Fred!” he muttered. “He's too good at heart to be treated this way, and he's not a real thief, either. Folks have told him all his life that he had a right to more of the old man's money than he was getting, and he didn't think it was stealing.”
On a corner he saw Bill Johnston, the sheriff, a man about forty-five years of age, who wore great heavy top-boots, a broad-brimmed hat, and had sharp brown eyes and a waxed and twisted mustache. With considerable reluctance, Toby went up to him.
“Mr. Walton wants to see you, Bill,” he said. “He's in his office in the bank.”
“Well, I can't come for ten minutes yet, anyway,” the sheriff said, not removing his steady gaze from a group of men round a mountain wagon in a vacant lot across the street, where, on a high hoarding of planks, glaring new circus bills were posted. “The boys are about to smell out a keg of wild-cat whiskey in that gang of mossbacks. They may need me any minute. Tell the old man I'll be along as soon as I can.”
Lassiter went back to the bank and gained his employer's presence without attracting the attention of any of the clerks. He found the shaggy head prone on the desk, the long arms hanging down at either side. For a moment Toby thought the banker was a victim of heart-failure, and stood stricken with horror. But he was reassured by a low groan from the almost inert human mass.
“Good Lord,” he heard the banker praying, “scourge him! Don't heed his cries and promises! He has lied to me, he'll lie to you!” Therewith Simon raised his blearing eyes, now fixed and bloodshot in their sockets.