The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-07-24
Copyright, 1904,
CHAPTER IV.-Continued

m 1LLl\0lON " hEEfE a q n o
tA place of business except this little
room-he had no other Office.
Smith had found that out.
Here, then, reasoned Smith, and
rightly, it would seem, must lie the evil
dence of his worldly wealth. Smith
paused and rubbed his hands together
in pleasant anticipation. For this, he
reasoned with himself, was the latest
job that he had ever swung.
He smiled and threw open the safe
doors and looked within. He found a
few small bills-enough for the daily
use Of q man about town, and bank
book and a check book of the Monroe
National bank, standing in the name
of the late Ellington O'Keefe.
Phe check book showed a balance on
deposit of just s763.75.
That was all-that was the whole
story. There We're plenty of private
] memoranda; a few very doubtful Sc
! curities, and nothing else. And Consti-
] t1tionai Smith, though from. that day
forth he commenced a careful search
which lasted for months and months
Constitutional Smith never found an
other thing of value
He did not wfnce-he only wondered.
He was too experienced a man to be
disappointed. He took the good that
; the gods provided. The situation was
: not as bad as 1t might be. He was
: safe, and if O'Keefe did not have pres
: ent wealth, Smith doubted not his own
ability TO turn dollar after dollar as
OKeefe's counterfeit presentment. He
little knew-he little understood
= But what did bother him-though it
did not worry him exactly-was, what
: had become of all the O'Keefe wealth /?
That was a thing he could not under
stand. Day after day he tried to solve
the problem, and little by little he
formed the conclusion that O'Keefe
had been overrated and that he had
been spendthrift. Gold dust from the
hlondike trail is alluring; in the minds
OF the populace each grain becomes
magnif1ed into a nugget This. doubt
less, Is the way il was with Ellington
Okeefe- He had made respectable
strike; he had come back; the people
had bowed down before him, and he
was compelled to keep up a reputation
made in such a dazzling manner. All
his life he had been without money.
and now that he had made a strike,
! doubtless he had not realized the value
OF 1t; 1t had run through his fingers
like water-and now it was all gone,
perhaps before he realized it. 1t is but
the way of the world
In cracking open this safe and in
searching through it, Constitutional
Smith had done two things. each of
(Which seemed at first OF trivial i'm
portance.
; The first was that he had, in his ex-
Ecitementz Jabbed his index finger with
the drill and caused a slight wound,
(which bled. He bound il up with his
| handkerchief. 1t was while he was ex-
aiming the signatures Of Ellington
FOkeefe, with a view of drawing checks
land signing documents of various kinds,
that it suddenly occurred to him that
fthis small hurt was a dispensation OF
providence. Allowances are made by
banks and other concerns for the sig
nature of man who had hurt his
hand. And, though Smith concluded
that he could make a dab at the bold,
plain signature Of Ellington O'Keefe-
Notwithstanding the fact that a bold,
Lplain signature is the hardest kind TO
copy-he calculated that teller, seeing
the rag upon his finger and noting the
slight difference in the signature would
attribute 1t to natural and reasonable
causes rather than to the actual and
existing cause. This was satisfactory;
and If one wears rag about ones fin
ger, 1t is just as we'll to have a wound
!behind to show in case of necessity.
Smith had one
The other thing that he had done was
to discover among the private papers of
Mr.. Ellington O'Keefe the photograph
of young and very beautiful girl. It
was apparently a recent photograph,
and bore the name of a Monroe pho
togra pher.
On the back of it, in a hand which
Seemed to be old and tremulous, rather
than young and girlish, was written IN
lblack ink the name Of Margaret Robe
son"
Few women's faces had ever appealed
TO Constitutional Smith; few women
fortunately for him, had ever appealed
TO him. He was not Woman's man.
although he could be if he chose.
{ But there was something in the face