"
"Oh, my children! my children!" murmured Billy Brackett, "why will you
persist in attempting to travel through this wicked world without a
guardian? Of all the scrapes from which I have been called to rescue
you, this might have proved the most serious."
"I don't see how," said both Glen and Binney.
Winn knew, and he smiled a little self-complacent smile as he
reflected, "This is a little worse than any mess I ever got into."
"You would have seen quickly enough if you had tried to spend this
money," said Billy Brackett, "for you would undoubtedly have been
arrested on the charge of counterfeiting. Those same fellows put Winn
here in that fix a short time since, besides getting away with a
thousand dollars' worth of wheat that he had in charge, and now they
have come very near serving you the same trick."
Here Winn's smile faded away rather suddenly, while Glen exclaimed,
"Do you mean to say that these bills are counterfeit?"
"I do," replied Billy Brackett; "and if you doubt it, take them to the
first bank you come across and ask the cashier."
"But the City Marshal took some just like them," argued Glen, catching
at the only straw of hope in sight.
"So much the worse for the City Marshal, and I for one shall let him
suffer the consequences. He had no business to accept a reward for
performing a simple act of duty, in the first place; and in the second,
the readiness with which he delivered this raft to the first claimants
who came along makes it look very much as though he could be bribed.
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