Dick Prescott watched the pair, feeling a rising resentment against the deputy.  Yet Valden was only resorting to tricks as old as the police themselves—–­the taunting of a prisoner into talking too much and thereby betraying his guilt.

“Pardon me, Tag,” Dick now interposed, “but it’s a principle of law that a prisoner doesn’t have to talk unless he wants to.  I don’t believe, if I were you, I’d say anything just now.”

“I’m not going to say anything more,” Tag retorted moodily, yet with a flash of somewhat sullen gratitude to Prescott.

“Humph!  You’d better talk, and get all you know out of your system,” advised Deputy Valden contemptuously.  “And the first thing you’d better own up to is pulling the missing planks up from this crazy old bridge.”

Tag snorted, yet had no word to say.  Instead, as best he could with his hands in the steel bracelets, he helped himself to a seat on the ground his back against a tree.  Either he was extremely weary, or he was pretending cleverly.

“Come!  I guess you can talk better standing up,” admonished Deputy Valden, seizing Tag by the coat collar and dragging him to his feet.  Mosher accepted the implied order in sullen silence.

“Is it necessary, Mr. Valden, to torment the prisoner?” asked Dick quietly.

“The way I handle a prisoner is my business,” replied Valden rather crisply.

“You’d rather sit down, wouldn’t you,
Tag?” Dick inquired.  Young Mosher answered only with a nod.

“It makes you feel weaker to stand, doesn’t it?” Prescott continued.

Another nod.

“Mr. Valden,” Dick pressed, “I hope you won’t think me too forward, but I believe this prisoner, and I am going to urge you to let him find comfort by sitting down and resting.”

“What have you got to say about it?” demanded Mr. Valden, so brusquely that Dick flushed.

“I’m not in a position of authority, and I admit it,” Prescott replied.  “But I think I have a right to object when I see a human being tormented needlessly, haven’t I?”

“You have no right to interfere in any way with an officer,” rejoined Valden less brusquely.

“Nor do I intend trying to interfere with a peace officer in anything proper that he does,” Dick went on quietly, though with spirit.  “It seems that Tag Mosher has a right to rest himself by sitting down.  If he tries again to sit down, and if you stop him from so doing, then Tag, if he wishes, may have me summoned to court to tell how he was tormented.  I’ll be willing to tell just whatever I may see here.”

Valden snorted, almost inaudibly, then turned away.  Tag slid down to the ground again, resting against the tree trunk, and preserving absolute silence.

The time passed slowly, but at last Deputy Simmons came in a car, followed by another car which contained a young man whom he introduced as Dr. Cutting.

“I’ll take you right back to camp,” announced Dr. Cutting, after Simmons had looked over his prisoner and then introduced the physician to Prescott.  “I can examine you better when I have you at your summer home and handy to your bed.  Can you get into the car?”