The sheriff walked to Vaniman and tapped him on the shoulder.  “You’re under arrest.”

“Charged with what?”

“I’m making it fairly easy for you,” explained, Starr, dryly, appearing to be better acquainted with the nature of the warrant than the sheriff was.  “Burglary, with or without accomplices, might have been charged—­seeing that the coin has been removed—­in the nighttime, of course!  But we’re simply making the charge embezzlement!”

CHAPTER XVII

ON THE FACE OF IT

Squire Hexter arranged for Vaniman’s bail, volunteering for that service, frankly admitting that he “had seen it coming all along”!  But the Squire was not as ready to serve as Frank’s counsel and withstood that young man’s urging for some time.  The Squire’s solicitude in behalf of the accused was the reason for this reluctance.  “You ought to have the smartest city lawyer you can hire.  I’m only an old country codger, son!”

“Squire Hexter, I propose to let the other side have a monopoly of the tricks.  I’m depending on my innocence, and I want your honesty back of it.”

In the hope that the folks of Egypt would recognize innocence when they saw it, Vaniman daily walked the streets of the village.  The pride of innocence was soon wounded; he learned that his action in “showing himself under the folks’s noses” was considered as bravado.  The light of day showed him so many sour looks that he stayed in the house with Xoa or in the Squire’s office until night.  Then he discovered that when he walked abroad under cover of the darkness he was persistently trailed; it was evident that the belief that he had hidden the coin of the Egypt Trust Company was sticking firmly in the noodles of the public.

The bank, of course, was now forbidden ground for him.  The affairs of that unhappy institution were being wound up.  Considering the fact that the stockholders had been assessed dollar for dollar of their holdings, and that, even with this assessment added to the assets, the depositors would get back only a fraction of their money, Vaniman could scarcely marvel at the hard looks and the muttered words he met up with on the street.

Furthermore, the insurance company took the stand that the bank had not been burglarized.  On the other hand, the security company behind Vaniman’s bond refused to settle, claiming that some kind of a theft had been committed by outsiders.  Only after expensive litigation could Receiver Waite hope to add insurance and bond money to the assets.  The prospects of getting anything were clouded by the revelations concerning President Britt’s private entrance to the bank vault.  But Britt was not accused of anything except of presuming on too many liberties in running a one-man bank.  Under some circumstances Britt would have been called to an accounting, without question.  But all the venom of suspicion was wholly engaged with Frank Vaniman, the son of an embezzler.