The Price | Page 8

anticipated her intention and forbade it with a courteous gesture;
whereat she turned again to the window to conclude her small
transaction with the teller.
The few moments which followed were terribly trying ones for the
gray-haired president of the Bayou State Security. None the less, his
brain was busy with the chanceful possibilities. Failing all else, he was
determined to give the teller a warning signal, come what might. It was
a duty owed to society no less than to the bank and to himself. But on

the pinnacle of resolution, at the instant when, with the robber at his
elbow, he stepped to the window and presented the check, Andrew
Galbraith felt the gentle pressure of the pistol muzzle against his side;
nay, more; he fancied he could feel the cold chill of the metal strike
through and through him.
So it came about that the fine resolution had quite evaporated when he
said, with what composure there was in him: "You'll please give me
currency for that, Johnson."
The teller glanced at the check and then at his superior; not too
inquisitively, since it was not his business to question the president's
commands.
"How will you have it?" he asked; and it was the stranger at Mr.
Galbraith's elbow who answered.
"One thousand in fives, tens, and twenties, loose, if you please; the
remainder in the largest denominations, put up in a package."
The teller counted out the one thousand in small notes quickly; but he
had to leave the cage and go to the vault for the huge remainder. This
was the crucial moment of peril for the robber, and the president,
stealing a glance at the face of his persecutor, saw the blue eyes blazing
with excitement.
"It is your time to pray, Mr. Galbraith," said the spoiler in low tones. "If
you have given your man the signal----"
But the signal had not been given. The teller was re-entering the cage
with the bulky packet of money-paper.
"You needn't open it," said the young man at the president's elbow.
"The bank's count is good enough for me." And when the window
wicket had been unlatched and the money passed out, he stuffed the
loose bills carelessly into his pocket, put the package containing the
ninety-nine thousand dollars under his arm, nodded to the president,
backed swiftly to the street door and vanished.

Then it was that Mr. Andrew Galbraith suddenly found speech, opening
his thin lips and pouring forth a torrent of incoherence which presently
got itself translated into a vengeful hue and cry; and New Orleans the
unimpetuous had its sensation ready-made.

IV
IO TRIUMPHE!
If Kenneth Griswold, backing out of the street door of the Bayou State
Security and vanishing with his booty, had been nothing more than a
professional "strong-arm man," he would probably have been taken and
jailed within the hour, if only for the reason that his desperate cast for
fortune included no well-wrought-out plan of escape. But since he was
at once both wiser and less cunning than the practised bank robber, he
threw his pursuers off the scent by an expedient in which artlessness
and daring quite beyond the gifts of the journeyman criminal played
equal parts.
Once safely in the street, with a thousand dollars in his pocket and the
packet of bank-notes under his arm, he was seized by an impulse to do
some extravagant thing to celebrate his success. It had proved to be
such a simple matter, after all: one bold stroke; a tussle, happily
bloodless, with the plutocratic dragon whose hold upon his treasure
was so easily broken; and presto! the hungry proletary had become
himself a power in the world, strong to do good or evil, as the gods
might direct.
This was the prompting to exultation as it might have been set in words;
but in Griswold's thought it was but a swift suggestion, followed
instantly by another which was much more to the immediate purpose.
He was hungry: there was a restaurant next door to the bank. Without
thinking overmuch of the risk he ran, and perhaps not at all of the
audacious subtlety of such an expedient at such a critical moment, he
went in, sat down at one of the small marble-topped tables, and calmly
ordered breakfast.

Since hunger is a lusty special pleader, making itself heard above any
pulpit drum of the higher faculties, it is quite probable that Griswold
dwelt less upon what he had done than upon what he was about to eat,
until the hue and cry in the street reminded him that the chase was
begun. But at this, not to appear suspiciously incurious, he put on the
mask of indifferent interest and asked the waiter concerning the uproar.
The serving man did not