Copper Streak Trail | Page 8

of these papers, face down.
"It's endorsed," he said, pointing to his heavy signature.
"How will you have it, sir?" Hudson inquired with a smile of mocking deference.
"Quick and now," said Pete.
Hudson flipped over the check. The sneer died from his face. His tongue licked at his paling lips.
"What does this mean?" he stammered.
"Can't you read?" said Pete.
The cashier did not answer. He turned and called across the room:
"Mr. Marsh! Mr. Marsh!"
Marsh came quickly, warned by the startled note in the cashier's voice. Hudson passed him the check with hands that trembled a little. The vice-president's face mottled with red and white. The check was made to the order of P.W. Johnson; it was signed by Henry Bergman, sheriff of Pima County, and the richest cowman of the Santa Cruz Valley; the amount was eighty-six thousand dollars.
Marsh glowered at Johnson in a cold fury.
"Call up Bergman!" he ordered.
Hudson made haste to obey.
"Oh, that's all right! I'd just as soon wait," said Pete cheerfully. "Hank's at home, anyhow. I told him maybe you'd want to ask about the check."
"He should have notified us before drawing out any such amount," fumed Marsh. "This is most unusual, for a small bank like this. He told us he shouldn't need this money until this fall."
"Draft on El Paso will do. Don't have to have cash."
"All very well--but it will be a great inconvenience to us, just the same."
"Really--but that is hardly our affair, is it?" said Pete carelessly.
The banker smote the shelf with an angry hand; some of the rouleaus of gold stacked on the inner shelf toppled and fell; gold pieces clattered on the floor.
"Johnson, what is your motive? What are you up to?"
"It's all perfectly simple. Old Hank and me used to be implicated together in the cow business down on the Concho. One of the Goliad Bergmans--early German settlers."
Here Hudson hung up and made interruption.
"Bergman says the check is right," he reported.
Johnson resumed his explanation:
"As I was sayin', I reckon I know all the old-time cowmen from here to breakfast and back. Old Joe Benavides, now--one of your best depositors; I fished Joe out of Manzanillo Bay thirty year back. He was all drowned but Amen."
Wetting his thumb he slipped off the next paper from under the rubber band. Marsh eyed the sheaf apprehensively and winced.
"Got one of Joe's checks here," Pete continued, smoothing it out. "But maybe I won't need to cash it--to-day."
"Johnson," said the vice-president, "are you trying to start a run on this bank? What do you want?"
"My money. What the check calls for. That is final."
"This is sheer malice."
"Not a bit of it. You're all wrong. Just common prudence--that's all. You see, I needed a little money. As I was tellin' you, I got right smart of property, but no cash just now; nor any comin' till steer-sellin' time. So I come down to Tucson on the rustle. Five banks in Tucson; four of 'em, countin' yours, turned me down cold."
"If you had got Bergman to sign with you--" Marsh began.
"Tell that to the submarines," said Pete. "Good irrigated land is better than any man's name on a note; and I don't care who that man is. A man might die or run away, or play the market. Land stays put. Well, after my first glimpse of the cold shoulder I ciphered round a spell. I'm a great hand to cipher round. Some one is out to down me; some one is givin' out orders. Who? Mayer Zurich, I judged. He sold me a shoddy coat once. And he wept because he couldn't loan me the money I wanted, himself. He's one of these liers-in-wait you read about--Mayer is.
"So I didn't come to you till the last, bein' as Zurich was one of your directors. I studied some more--and then I hunted up old Hank Bergman and told him my troubles," said Pete suavely. "He expressed quite some considerable solicitude. 'Why, Petey, this is a shockin' disclosure!' he says. 'A banker is a man that makes a livin' loanin' other people's money. Lots of marble and brass to a bank, salaries and other expenses. Show me a bank that's quit lendin' money and I'll show you a bank that's due to bust, muy pronto! I got quite a wad in the Merchants and Miners,' he says, 'and you alarm me. I'll give you a check for it, and you go there first off to-morrow and see if they'll lend you what you need. You got good security. If they ain't lendin',' he says, 'then you just cash my check and invest it for me where it will be safe. I lose the interest for only four days,' he says--'last Monday, the fifteenth, being my quarter day. Hold out what you need for yourself.'
"'I don't want any,' says I. 'The