The Colonel began to slap this pocket and that one, and feel here and there and everywhere, muttering: 

“What have I done with that wallet?—­let me see—­um—­not here, not there —­Oh, I must have left it in the kitchen; I’ll just run and—­”

“No you won’t—­you’ll stay right where you are.  And you’re going to disgorge, too—­this time.”

Washington innocently offered to go and look.  When he was gone the Colonel said: 

“The fact is, I’ve got to throw myself on your indulgence just this once more, Suggs; you see the remittances I was expecting—­”

“Hang the remittances—­it’s too stale—­it won’t answer.  Come!”

The Colonel glanced about him in despair.  Then his face lighted; he ran to the wall and began to dust off a peculiarly atrocious chromo with his handkerchief.  Then he brought it reverently, offered it to the collector, averted his face and said: 

“Take it, but don’t let me see it go.  It’s the sole remaining Rembrandt that—­”

“Rembrandt be damned, it’s a chromo.”

“Oh, don’t speak of it so, I beg you.  It’s the only really great original, the only supreme example of that mighty school of art which—­”

“Art!  It’s the sickest looking thing I—­”

The colonel was already bringing another horror and tenderly dusting it.

“Take this one too—­the gem of my collection—­the only genuine Fra Angelico that—­”

“Illuminated liver-pad, that’s what it is.  Give it here—­good day—­ people will think I’ve robbed a’ nigger barber-shop.”

As he slammed the door behind him the Colonel shouted with an anguished accent—­

“Do please cover them up—­don’t let the damp get at them.  The delicate tints in the Angelico—­”

But the man was gone.

Washington re-appeared and said he had looked everywhere, and so had Mrs. Sellers and the servants, but in vain; and went on to say he wished he could get his eye on a certain man about this time—­no need to hunt up that pocket-book then.  The Colonel’s interest was awake at once.

“What man?”

“One-armed Pete they call him out there—­out in the Cherokee country I mean.  Robbed the bank in Tahlequah.”

“Do they have banks in Tahlequah?”

“Yes—­a bank, anyway.  He was suspected of robbing it.  Whoever did it got away with more than twenty thousand dollars.  They offered a reward of five thousand.  I believe I saw that very man, on my way east.”

“No—­is that so?

“I certainly saw a man on the train, the first day I struck the railroad, that answered the description pretty exactly—­at least as to clothes and a lacking arm.”

“Why don’t you get him arrested and claim the reward?”

“I couldn’t.  I had to get a requisition, of course.  But I meant to stay by him till I got my chance.”

“Well?”

“Well, he left the train during the night some time.”