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Page 86
"That paper I just saw you place in that file, I suppose is something
else--field notes, or a transfer probably?"
"Yes," said Sharp, hurriedly, "corrected field notes. Excuse me, I am a
little pressed for time."
The boy was watching him with bright, alert eyes.
It would never do to leave the certificate in the file; but he could not
take it out with that inquisitive boy watching him.
He turned to the file room, with a dozen or more files in his hands, and
accidentally dropped part of them on the floor. As he stooped to pick
them up he swiftly thrust Bexar Scrip No. 2692 in the inside breast
pocket of his coat.
This happened at just half-past four o'clock, and when the file clerk
took the files he threw them in a pile in his room, came out and locked
the door.
The clerks were moving out of the doors in long, straggling lines.
It was closing time.
Sharp did not desire to take the file from the Land Office.
The boy might have seen him place the file in his pocket, and the
penalty of the law for such an act was very severe.
Some distance back from the file room was the draftsman's room now
entirely vacated by its occupants.
Sharp dropped behind the outgoing stream of men, and slipped slyly into
this room.
The clerks trooped noisily down the iron stairway, singing, whistling,
and talking.
Below, the night watchman awaited their exit, ready to close and bar the
two great doors to the south and cast.
It is his duty to take careful note each day that no one remains in the
building after the hour of closing.
Sharp waited until all sounds had ceased.
It was his intention to linger until everything was quiet, and then to
remove the certificate from the file, and throw the latter carelessly on
some draftsman's desk as if it had been left there during the business
of the day.
He knew also that he must remove the certificate from the office or
destroy it, as the chance finding of it by a clerk would lead to its
immediately being restored to its proper place, and the consequent
discovery that his location over the old survey was absolutely
worthless.
As he moved cautiously along the stone floor the loud barking of the
little black dog, kept by the watchman, told that his sharp ears had
heard the sounds of his steps. The great, hollow rooms echoed loudly,
move as lightly as he could.
Sharp sat down at a desk and laid the file before him. In all his queer
practices and cunning tricks he had not yet included any act that was
downright criminal. He had always kept on the safe side of the law, but
in the deed he was about to commit there was no compromise to be made
with what little conscience he had left.
There is no well-defined boundary line between honesty and dishonesty.
The frontiers of one blend with the outside limits of the other, and he
who attempts to tread this dangerous ground may be sometimes in one
domain and sometimes in the other; so the only safe road is the broad
highway that leads straight through and has been well defined by line
and compass.
Sharp was a man of what is called high standing in the community. That
is, his word in a trade was as good as any man's; his check was as good
as so much cash, and so regarded; he went to church regularly; went in
good society and owed no man anything.
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