Mr. Wagg was not composed.  This threat to disrupt his fifty-fifty plan brought him out of something that was like stupor.  “You belong back in state prison, and I’ll see to it that you’re put there.”

The man who called himself Bill was not ruffled.  He waved his arm to indicate the spread of the landscape.  “Doesn’t being up here above the world lift you out of the rut of petty revenge?  Can’t you see things in a broader way?  I can.  I feel like praising you for that job you put up to get our valuable friend out where he can help all four of us.  For many a day, after I saw that you had this friend out in the yard and were interested in him, I tended less to making harness pads and more to watching you through the shop window.  I was interested in the gent, too.  Tom and I had made up our minds to be as patient as possible for seven years—­and then be rusticating up in these hills, right on hand to help him in the chore of digging it out of whatever hole it’s hidden in.  Couldn’t let you monopolize him—­absolutely not, Mr. Guard!  Do you think I was hiding out that noon only by luck and chance?  No, no!  I saw you monkeying with the chimney door that forenoon.  I saw how you were hopping around and I got a good look at your face.  Says I to myself, Tom not being handy, ’There’s something to be pulled off, and I’ll make sure how it is pulled.’  That’s how I happened to be on the business side of that shield, Mr. Guard.  It was good work.  It leaves our friend pretty comfortable, so far as the dicks are concerned.  Tom and I have got to keep dodging ’em.  We didn’t have your advantages, you know—­Tom and I didn’t!  We simply did the best we could in getting out—­realizing the value of time.”

The short man was employing a patronizing tone, as if accomplishing an escape from state prison was merely a matter of election of methods.  All of the guard’s official pride was in arms.  He advanced on the convict and shook a finger under his nose.  “How did you get out?  You don’t dare to tell me.  It was an accident.  You didn’t use any brains.  You don’t dare to tell, I say!”

“Oh yes, I do!” The convict was placid.  “I’ll tell you because you’ll never dare to open your mouth on the matter.  Furthermore, you’ve got to understand the position Tom and I are in right now in regard to a third party.  That party is a trusty—­he gets out in three months from now and has been having the run of the corridors as a repair man.”

Wagg growled something.

“Oh yes, he will!” asseverated the convict.  “He’ll come out on time!  A fine show of yourself you’ll make trying to dutch him.  The pen is mightier than the sword, but inside a prison pen the little screw driver has ’em all faded when a trusty is the repair man.  Cell door, tier door, attic door—­all attended to; ventilator grating likewise.  Rope in ventilator, up rope—­out goes rope and down rope!  Roof, wall, drop!  Rear window of second-hand shop.  Outfit!  Hike!  Good start, till morning shows the cot dummies!  Truss rods of Wagner freight, blind baggage to Levant on the ’tween-days train.  Into the bush—­and here!”