He leaped up, in the frenzy of his determination forgetting that there were preliminaries yet to be attended to.

“Sit down there, Convict Two-Seven-Nine, or I’ll bore ye!” bawled Guard Wagg, with a mighty volume of tone.  A deputy warden was crossing the yard.  He flourished a commendatory salute to the vigilant warder.

“Good stuff, Bart!  Always on your job, eh?”

“Always!” agreed Mr. Wagg.

The warden went on his way and the guard marched to the convict with a manner which expressed a determination to give No. 279 an earful.  He stood over Vaniman, who had dropped back to the chair, and the two of them swapped stares.

“I want to get out—­I want to get out!” whimpered Vaniman.

Mr. Wagg nodded.

“What must I do?”

“Whack up with me—­fifty-fifty.  Haven’t I told you times enough?”

“But, I mean, what must I do to help?”

“I don’t need any of your help.  I only want you to say that you’ll lead me to that money.”

Vaniman drew a deep breath.  “I will lead you to that money.”

“Some men would make you swear that you know just where the coin is,” proceeded Wagg.  “But I’m playing my own hunch in this thing on that point.  Furthermore, I have talked with a chap named Bixby.”  He looked hard at the ex-cashier.  “Bixby tied your little game into knots, didn’t he?”

Vaniman admitted that fact by a rueful sag of his chin.

“Confidence—­mutual confidence in each other!” Mr. Wagg walked away.  When he came back past Vaniman, patrolling, he snapped:  “No more talk!  No more need of talk.  Never can tell when talk may trip us.  From now on, sit tight!”

After that, though days passed, Wagg had not one word for the amelioration of the convict’s impatience.  Then, one day, Wagg changed his job again.  Vaniman was kept at the same work, if work it could be called.  He caught glimpses of Wagg.  The guard was busy on the opposite side of the big pit.  He had two or three convict helpers.  They began to operate drills in the side of a rocky hillock which towered considerably above the level of the yard.

News circulates inside prison walls despite the inhibition on communications between the inmates.  Vaniman got information piecemeal from convicts who stopped near him on the pretense of spitting on their hands to get a new grip on their barrow handles.  He learned that the plan was to mine the hillock and rig a blast that would tip it into the pit for filling.  The barrow work was proving too slow an operation and the prison commissioners wanted the outside men put back into the shops where they could earn money for the state.

It was evident that Guard Wagg was having a great deal of trouble with his helpers.  He was continually bawling them out with a violence whose volume reached the ears of Vaniman.

One day Wagg perceived the warden inspecting the work from the edge of the pit near Vaniman; the guard came trotting around.