“Oh, no—­that was another man entirely.  He came a little later.  And he sure wanted me to quit jail; because he said so.  But I wouldn’t go, sheriff.  I thought you wouldn’t like it.  Say, you ought to sit down, feller.  You’re going to have apoplexy one of these days, sure as you’re a foot high!”

“You come downstairs with me,” said the angry Barton.  “I’ll get at the bottom of this or I’ll have your heart out of you.”

“All right, sheriff.  Just you wait till I get dressed.”  Peter laced his shoes, put on his hat, and laid tie, coat, and vest negligently across the hollow of his arm.  “I can’t do my tie good unless I got a looking-glass,” he explained, and paused to light a cigar.  “Have one, sheriff,” he said with hospitable urgency.

“Get out of here!” shouted the enraged officer.

Pete tripped light-footed down the stairs.  At the stairfoot the sheriff paused.  In the cell directly opposite were two bruised and tattered inmates where there should have been but one, and that one undismantled.  The sheriff surveyed the wreckage within.  His jaw dropped; his face went red to the hair; his lip trembled as he pointed to the larger of the two roommates, who was, beyond doubting, Amos Poole—­or some remainder of him.

“How did that man get here?” demanded the sheriff in a cracked and horrified voice.

“Him?  Oh, I throwed him in there!” said Pete lightly.  “That’s the man who brought me the keys and pestered me to go away with him.  Say, sheriff, better watch out!  He told me he had a gun, and that he had the jailer tied and gagged.”

“The damned skunk didn’t have no gun!  All he had was a flashlight, and I broke that over his head.  But he tole me the same story about the jailer—­all except the gun.”  This testimony was volunteered by Poole’s cellmate.

Peter removed his cigar and looked at the “damned skunk” more closely.

“Why, if it ain’t Mr. Poole!” he said.

“Sure, it’s Poole.  What in hell does he mean, then—­swearin’ you into jail and then breakin’ you out?”

“Hadn’t you better ask him?” said Peter, very reasonably.  “You come on down to the office, sheriff.  I want you to get at the bottom of this or have the heart out of some one.”  He rolled a dancing eye at Poole with the word, and Poole shrank before it.

“Breakfast!  Bring us our breakfast!” bawled the prisoners.  “Breakfast!”

The sheriff dealt leniently with the uproar, realizing that these were but weakling folk and, under the influence of excitement, hardly responsible.

“Brooks has been tied up all night, and is all but dead.  I’ll get you something as soon as I can,” he said, “on condition that you stop that hullabaloo at once.  Johnson, come down to the office.”

He telephoned a hurry call to a restaurant, Brooks, the jailer, being plainly incapable of furnishing breakfast.  Then he turned to Pete.

“What is this, Johnson?  A plant?”