“It’s endorsed,” he said, pointing to his heavy signature.

“How will you have it, sir?” Hudson inquired with a smile of mocking deference.

“Quick and now,” said Pete.

Hudson flipped over the check.  The sneer died from his face.  His tongue licked at his paling lips.

“What does this mean?” he stammered.

“Can’t you read?” said Pete.

The cashier did not answer.  He turned and called across the room: 

“Mr. Marsh!  Mr. Marsh!”

Marsh came quickly, warned by the startled note in the cashier’s voice.  Hudson passed him the check with hands that trembled a little.  The vice-president’s face mottled with red and white.  The check was made to the order of P.W.  Johnson; it was signed by Henry Bergman, sheriff of Pima County, and the richest cowman of the Santa Cruz Valley; the amount was eighty-six thousand dollars.

Marsh glowered at Johnson in a cold fury.

“Call up Bergman!” he ordered.

Hudson made haste to obey.

“Oh, that’s all right!  I’d just as soon wait,” said Pete cheerfully.  “Hank’s at home, anyhow.  I told him maybe you’d want to ask about the check.”

“He should have notified us before drawing out any such amount,” fumed Marsh.  “This is most unusual, for a small bank like this.  He told us he shouldn’t need this money until this fall.”

“Draft on El Paso will do.  Don’t have to have cash.”

“All very well—­but it will be a great inconvenience to us, just the same.”

“Really—­but that is hardly our affair, is it?” said Pete carelessly.

The banker smote the shelf with an angry hand; some of the rouleaus of gold stacked on the inner shelf toppled and fell; gold pieces clattered on the floor.

“Johnson, what is your motive?  What are you up to?”

“It’s all perfectly simple.  Old Hank and me used to be implicated together in the cow business down on the Concho.  One of the Goliad Bergmans—­early German settlers.”

Here Hudson hung up and made interruption.

“Bergman says the check is right,” he reported.

Johnson resumed his explanation: 

“As I was sayin’, I reckon I know all the old-time cowmen from here to breakfast and back.  Old Joe Benavides, now—­one of your best depositors; I fished Joe out of Manzanillo Bay thirty year back.  He was all drowned but Amen.”

Wetting his thumb he slipped off the next paper from under the rubber band.  Marsh eyed the sheaf apprehensively and winced.

“Got one of Joe’s checks here,” Pete continued, smoothing it out.  “But maybe I won’t need to cash it—­to-day.”

“Johnson,” said the vice-president, “are you trying to start a run on this bank?  What do you want?”

“My money.  What the check calls for.  That is final.”

“This is sheer malice.”

“Not a bit of it.  You’re all wrong.  Just common prudence—­that’s all.  You see, I needed a little money.  As I was tellin’ you, I got right smart of property, but no cash just now; nor any comin’ till steer-sellin’ time.  So I come down to Tucson on the rustle.  Five banks in Tucson; four of ‘em, countin’ yours, turned me down cold.”