I had scarcely spoken the words, as the rough-looking visitor was retreating without any dram, when Nick made a flying leap over the counter, and rushed out at the street door. The gentleman with the package had his eyes upturned to the ceiling, in the act of draining the tumbler in which he had elaborately stirred up the fiery mixture. [Illustration: "Nick rushed out at the street door." _Page 22._] When Nick went over the counter the customer was startled. He saw, at the same moment I discovered the fact, that the package he had laid upon the counter was missing. He rushed out of the saloon like a crazy man. CHAPTER II. FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS. "What on airth does all that mean?" said Captain Boomsby, rising with difficulty from his chair, and walking towards the front door. "I'm sure I don't know," I replied. "I saw Nick leap over the counter as though he had found a mocassin-snake behind it." "Don't say nothin' about mocassins here, for you scart my wife out of her seven senses once afore," said the captain, savagely, as he stopped and looked at me. He had set a trap to have such a snake bite me in his house; but I was not thinking of that when I named the venomous reptile. This event, and the quantity of his own vile fluids he consumed, made him sensitive on the subject of snakes. I was afraid he would soon see more of them than he could manage. "What made Nick run out so quick, and what did Peverell follow him for, without payin' for his liquor?" continued Captain Boomsby, when he had properly admonished me in regard to the snakes. "I don't know, sir," I replied. "Who was the man that followed Nick?" "That was Peverell." "Who is Peverell?" I asked. "What does he do?" "He is the messenger, I believe they call him, of the First National Bank of Florida." "That explains it all, then," I added, beginning to understand the situation. "I don't see nothin'. What explains it all?" demanded the captain, testily. "Peverell had a package when he came in. He put it on the counter before he poured out his dram," I explained. "When Nick went over the counter the package was gone. If Peverell is the messenger of a bank, I have no doubt the bundle contained money in bank notes." "Creation! You don't! But what made Nick go over the bar so like a hoppergrass?" exclaimed the saloon-keeper. "I don't know. I can only understand what I saw." "If Nick's got that bundle of money, he's smart," added Captain Boomsby. "Do you think it was smart to steal it, captain?" I asked, mildly. "How big a package was it, Sandy?" replied my tyrant, turning away from the moral question. "It was at least two inches thick." "Creation! Then there ain't less than a thousand dollars in it!" "Let us hope that Nick did not take it," I added. "Well, you go out, Sandy, and see where Nick's gone. I can't leave both bars without anybody to look out for 'em, for them niggers will come in and steal the liquor as quick as they will chickens."