Pete’s nose quivered.

“Sure!  It was a plant from the first.  The Pooles were hired to set upon me.  This one was sent, masked, to tell me to break out.  Then, as I figure it, I was to be betrayed back again, to get two or three years in the pen for breaking jail.  Nice little scheme!”

“Who did it?  For Poole, if you’re not lying, was only a tool.”

“Sheriff,” said Pete, “pass your hand through my hair and feel there, and look at my face.  See any scars?  Quite a lot of ’em?  And all in front?  Men like me don’t have to lie.  They pay for what they break.  You go back up there and get after Poole.  He’ll tell you.  Any man that will do what he did to me, for money, will squeal on his employer.  Sure!”

Overhead the hammering and shouting broke out afresh.

“There,” said the sheriff regretfully; “now I’ll have to make those fellows go without anything to eat till dinner-time.”

“Sheriff,” said Pete, “you’ve been mighty square with me.  Now I want you should do me one more favor.  It will be the last one; for I shan’t be with you long.  Give those boys their breakfast.  I got ’em into this.  I’ll pay for it, and take it mighty kindly of you, besides.”

“Oh, all right!” growled the sheriff, secretly relieved.

“One thing more, brother:  I think your jailer was in this—­but that’s your business.  Anyhow, Poole knew which key opened my door, and he didn’t know the others.  Of course, he may have forced your jailer to tell him that.  But Poole didn’t strike me as being up to any bold enterprise unless it was cut-and-dried.”

The sheriff departed, leaving Johnson unguarded in the office.  In ten minutes he was back.

“All right,” he nodded.  “He confessed—­whimpering hard.  Brooks was in it.  I’ve got him locked up.  Nice doings, this is!”

“Mitchell?”

“Yes.  I wouldn’t have thought it of him.  What was the reason?”

“There is never but one reason.  Money.—­Who’s this?”

It was Mr. Boland, attended by Mr. Ferdie Sedgwick, both sadly disheveled and bearing marks of a sleepless night.  Francis Charles spoke hurriedly to the sheriff.

“Oh, I say, Barton!  McClintock will go bail for this man Johnson.  Ferdie and I would, but we’re not taxpayers in the county.  Come over to the Iroquois, won’t you?”

“Boland,” said the sheriff solemnly, “take this scoundrel out of my jail!  Don’t you ever let him step foot in here again.  There won’t be any bail; but he must appear before His Honor later to-day for the formal dismissal of the case.  Take him away!  If you can possibly do so, ship him out of town at once.”

Francis Charles winked at Peter as they went down the steps.

“So it was you last night?” said Peter.  “Thanks to you.  I’ll do as much for you sometime.”