He thrust his shoulders into the opening and wriggled outward.  Suddenly his forward movement was arrested.

“I was afraid of that!” he said, with a rather piteous smile.  “It’s my stomach, Solomon!” Mahaffy seized him by the shoulders with lean muscular hands.  “Pull!” cried the judge hoarsely.  But Mahaffy’s vigorous efforts failed to move him.

“I guess you’re stuck, Price!”

“Get your wind, Solomon,” urged the judge, “and then, if Hannibal will reach up and work about my middle with his knuckles while you pull, I may get through.”  But even this expedient failed.

“Do you reckon you can get me back?  I should not care to spend the night so!” said the judge.  He was purple and panting.

“Let’s try you edgewise!” And Mahaffy pushed the judge into the jail again.

“No,” said the judge, after another period of resolute effort on his part and on the part of Mahaffy.  “Providence has been kind to me in the past, but it’s clear she didn’t have me in mind when they cut this hole.”

“Well, Price, I guess all we can do is to go back to town and see if I can get into my cabin—­I’ve got an old saw there.  If I can find it, I can come again to-morrow night and cut away one of the logs, or the cleats of the door.”

“In Heaven’s name, do that to-night, Solomon!” implored the judge.  “Why procrastinate?”

“Price, there’s a pack of dogs in this neighborhood, and we must have a full night to move in, or they’ll pull us down before we’ve gone ten miles!”

The judge groaned.

“You’re right, Solomon; I’d forgotten the dogs,” and he groaned again.

Mahaffy closed and fastened the shutter, then he and Hannibal stole across the clearing and entered the woods.  The judge flung off his clothes and went to bed, determined to sleep away as many hours as possible.  He was only aroused by the arrival of his breakfast, which the sheriff brought about eight o’clock.

“Well, if I was in your boots I couldn’t sleep like you!” remarked that official admiringly.  “But I reckon, sir, this ain’t the first time the penitentiary has stared you in the face.”

“Then you reckon wrong,” said the judge sententiously, as he hauled on his trousers.

“No?—­you needn’t hurry none.  I’ll get them dishes when I fetch your dinner,” he added, as he took his leave.

A little later the blacksmith appeared and fitted three iron bars to the window.

“I reckon that’ll hold you, old feller!” he observed pleasantly.

He was disposed to linger, since he was interested in the mechanical means employed in the making of counterfeit money and thirsted for knowledge at first hand.  Also, he had in his possession a one-dollar bill which had come to him in the way of trade and which local experts had declared to be a spurious production.  He passed it in between the bars and demanded the judge’s opinion of it as though he were the first authority in the land.  But he went no wiser than he came.