"Yes, sir," responded Mr. Hawkins. "I understood that you wished to look it over here."
As Giddings laid down his cigar, moving over to the table, the two bank examiners joined the bank's officers.
Not a very imposing-looking pile was revealed when Mr. Hawkins opened the satchel, drawing forth the contents--three not very large packages covered with numerous heavy seals.
"As I'll probably never see three million dollars again in my life, I'll try to get a good look now," thought Tom Halstead, keenly alive with interest. He sat at some distance from the table, but had a good view.
Gaston Giddings himself opened one of the packages. He broke the seals deliberately, then unfolded many wrappings. Suddenly the contents of the package fell to the polished mahogany surface of the table, followed by the frenzied gaze of the young president.
"_Nothing but blank brown paper!_" he screamed, hoarsely. He collapsed, falling with his arms across the table, his eyes bulging as though an epileptic seizure threatened him.
With a fearful gasp Henry Hawkins snatched up another package, tearing it nervously apart. Conroy did the same with the third package. In each case the result was the same.
"Three million dollars worth of brown paper!" clicked one of the bank examiners.
Gaston Giddings, moaning piteously, turned, tottering back to his desk, where he fell heavily into his chair, next letting his head fall forward on his arms. Messrs. Hawkins and Conroy recovered much more quickly. They darted out into the counting room, but presently came back to report.
Frank Rollings had been gone more than an hour. When he left, he had carried a satchel. Some fifteen minutes before leaving the bank he had been in the main vault, the huge steel door of which he had afterwards closed. Conroy was now in that vault, with several subordinates, engaged in making a rapid survey of the other contents.
In the president's room Henry Hawkins, who no longer waited to consult the almost paralyzed young president, went swiftly to the telephone. The Bankers' Protective Association, advised by telephone, swiftly had half a dozen detectives scurrying to the bayside, to take up the trail at the ferry that furnishes the sole avenue to the east. Others of these detectives covered the docks of vessels due to sail that day from the port of San Francisco.