"
"But I don't understand all this at all," said Glen Elting. "If this
raft isn't theirs, why did they want it badly enough to pay three
hundred dollars reward for its recovery?"
"Whom did they pay it to?" asked Billy Brackett.
"A hundred to the City Marshal, and a hundred each to Binney and me.
We didn't want to take it, but they insisted, and said they should feel
hurt if we refused. So, of course, rather than hurt their feelings--
But really, Billy, they are most gentlemanly fellows, and I think
behaved very handsomely."
"Will you let me see the hundred dollars they gave you?" asked the
young engineer.
"Certainly," replied Glen, with an air of surprise, and adding, rather
stiffly, "though I didn't think, Billy, that _you_ would require proof
of my truthfulness."
"I don't, my dear boy, I don't!" exclaimed Billy Brackett. "I would
believe your unsupported word quicker than the sworn statement of most
men. I want to look at that money for a very different purpose."
So a roll of brand-new bills was handed to him, and he examined them
one by one with the utmost care.
"There are two hundred dollars here," he said at length. "Is this
Binney's share of the reward as well as your own?"
"No. I had a hundred-dollar bill, and Mr. Caspar seeing it, asked if I
would mind taking small bills for it, as he wanted one of that amount
to send off by mail; so, of course, I let him have it.
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