Page:Rover Boys on the Plains.djvu/101

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A TWENTY-DOLLAR BILL
87

"Yes, sah; thank you, sah!" said the man.

He fumbled around, and in a minute counted out nineteen dollars and a half in change. Pocketing the amount, the bully walked out, mounted his horse once more and rode away.

"Nice chap, to pay forty-five cents and then treat me to a cigar," thought the restaurant keeper. "Wish I had that sort coming in every day."

He lit the cigar and smoked it with a relish, particularly so as it had not cost him anything. He put the twenty-dollar bill away, to use when he should go to a neighboring city to buy some household goods, two days later.

When he went to buy his things, they came to twenty-six dollars, and he passed over the new twenty-dollar bill, and also an old one received some weeks before.

"I'll have to get change at the bank," said the store keeper, and left his place to do so. In a few minutes he came back in a hurry.

"See here," he cried. "They tell me one of these bills is a counterfeit."

"A counterfeit!" gasped the restaurant man.

"So the bank cashier says."

"Which bill?"

"The new one."