By this time the long, lean fingers had ripped open the package marked four hundred, and were extracting the contents,--a sheet of official paper with figures and memoranda, and then a flat package, apparently, of currency. Topmost was a five dollar treasury note; bottom-most another of the same denomination. Between them, deftly cut, trimmed and sized, were blank slips of paper to the number of perhaps thirty and the value of not one cent. With paling faces the officers watched the trembling fingers slash open the second, its flap, as was that of the first envelope, securely gummed,--not sealed. A nickel or two and a few dimes slid out before the packet came. It was of like consistency with the first--and of about the same value. Webb lifted up his eyes and looked straight into the amazed,--almost livid, face of the trader. "My God! Major Webb," cried Hay, aghast and bewildered. "Don't look at me like that! No man on earth has ever accused me of a crime. This means that not only my stable but my safe has been robbed,--and there is a traitor within my gates." Dr. Tracy, absorbed in contemplation of Miss Flower's radiant face, and in the effort to make his own words eloquent, had no ears for those of others. He never heeded the trader's excited outburst. He only saw her suddenly flinch, suddenly pale, then sway. His ready arm was round her in a twinkling. In a twinkling she twisted free from the undesired clasp. "Just--my foot turned!--a pebble!" she gasped. But when, all assiduity, Tracy would have seated her on the horseblock and examined the delicate ankle, she refused straightway, and with almost savage emphasis, and with rigid lips from which all loveliness had fled, bade him lead on home, where, despite protest and appeal, personal and professional, she dismissed him curtly. CHAPTER VI FIRST SIGHT OF THE FOE