"Don't do it! He's watchin' to see us all rush across and look. Just keep quiet, and see the solid citizens rear around." Old Orrin McIlvaine came out of the post-office and tried the door next, then stood for a long time reading the notice, and at last walked thoughtfully away. Soon he returned, to the merriment of the fellows in the barber shop, with two or three solid citizens who had been smoking an after-breakfast cigar and planning a deer-hunt. They stood before the window in a row and read the notice. McIlvaine gesticulated with his cigar. "Gentlemen, there's a pig loose here." "One o' Link's jokes, I reckon." "But that's Sanford's writin'. An' here it is nine o'clock, and no one round. I don't like the looks of it, myself." The crowd thickened; the fellows came out of the blacksmith shop, while the jokers in the barber shop smote their knees and yelled with merriment. "What's up?" queried Vance, coming up and repeating the universal question. McIlvaine pointed at the poster with his cigar. Vance read the notice, while the crowd waited silently. "What ye think of it?" asked some one, impatiently. Vance smoked a moment. "Can't say. Where's Jim?" "That's it! Where is he?" "Best way to find out is to send a boy up to the house." He called a boy and sent him scurrying up the street. The crowd now grew sober and discussed possibilities. "If that's true, it's the worst crack on the head I ever had," said McIlvaine. "Seventeen hundred dollars is my pile in there." He took a seat on the window-sill. "Well, I'm tickled to death to think I got my little stake out before anything happened." "When you think of it--what security did he ever give?" McIlvaine continued. "Not a cent--not a red cent." "No, sir; we simply banked on him. Now, he's a good fellow, an' this may be a joke o' Link's; but the fact is, it might 'a' happened. Well, sonny?" he said to the boy, who came running up. "Link ain't to home, an' Mrs. Sanford she says Jim's sick, an' can't come down." There was a silence. "Anybody see him this morning?" asked Wilson. "Yes; I saw him," said Vance. "Looked bad, too." The crowd changed; people came and went, some to get news, some to carry it away. In a short time the whole town knew the bank had "bu'sted all to smash." Farmers drove along, and stopped to find out what it all meant. The more they talked, the more excited they grew; and "Scoundrel," and "I always had my doubts of that feller," were phrases growing more frequent. The list of the victims grew until it was evident that nearly all of the savings of a dozen or more depositors were swallowed up, and the sum reached was nearly twenty thousand dollars. "What did he do with it?" was the question. He never gambled or drank. He lived frugally. There was no apparent cause for this failure of a trusted institution.