CHAPTER XIV
Mr. Johnson was rudely wakened from his slumbers by a violent hand upon his shoulder. Opening his eyes, he smiled up into the scowling face of Undersheriff Barton.
"Good-morning, sheriff," he said, and sat up, yawning.
The sun was shining brightly. Mr. Johnson reached for his trousers and yawned again.
The scandalized sheriff was unable to reply. He had been summoned by passers-by, who, hearing the turbulent clamor for breakfast made by the neglected prisoners, had hastened to give the alarm. He had found the jailer tightly bound, almost choked by his gag, suffering so cruelly from cramps that he could not get up when released, and barely able to utter the word "Johnson."
Acting on that hint, Barton had rushed up-stairs, ignoring the shouts of his mutinous prisoners as he went through the second-floor corridor, to find on the third floor an opened cell, with a bunch of keys hanging in the door, the rope and saw upon the table, Mr. Johnson's neatly folded clothing on the chair, and Mr. Johnson peacefully asleep. The sheriff pointed to the rope and saw, and choked, spluttering inarticulate noises. Mr. Johnson suspended dressing operations and patted him on the back.
"There, there!" he crooned benevolently. "Take it easy. What's the trouble? I hate to see you all worked up like this, for you was sure mighty white to me yesterday. Nicest jail I ever was in. But there was a thundering racket downstairs last night. I ain't complainin' none—I wouldn't be that ungrateful, after all you done for me. But I didn't get a good night's rest. Wish you'd put me in another cell to-night. There was folks droppin' in here at all hours of the night, pesterin' me. I didn't sleep good at all."
"Dropping in? What in hell do you mean?" gurgled the sheriff, still pointing to rope and saw.
"Why, sheriff, what's the matter? Aren't you a little mite petulant this
A.M.? What have I done that you should be so short to me?"
"That's what I want to know. What have you been doing here?"
"I ain't been doing nothin', I tell you—except stayin' here, where I belong," said Pete virtuously.
His eye followed the sheriff's pointing finger, and rested, without a qualm, on the evidence. The sheriff laid a trembling hand on the coiled rope. "How'd you get this in, damn you?"
"That rope? Oh, a fellow shoved it through the bars. Wanted me to saw my way out and go with him, I reckon. I didn't want to argue with him, so I just took it and didn't let on I wasn't comin'. Wasn't that right? Why, I thought you'd be pleased! I couldn't have any way of knowin' that you'd take it like this."
"Shoved it in through a third-story window?"
Pete's ingenuous face took on an injured look. "I reckon maybe he stood on his tip-toes," he admitted.
"Who was it?"
"I don't know," said Pete truthfully. "He didn't speak and I didn't see him. Maybe he didn't want me to break jail; but I thought, seein' the saw and all, he had some such idea in mind."
"Did he bring the keys, too?"
"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?"
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."
"Thank us both. This is my friend Sedgwick, who was to have been our chauffeur." The two gentlemen bowed, grinning joyfully. "My name's Boland, and I'm to be your first stockholder. Miss Selden told me about you—which is my certificate of character. Come over to the hotel and see Old McClintock. Miss Selden is there too. She bawled him out about Nephew Stan last night. Regular old-fashioned wigging! And now she has the old gentleman eating from her hand. Say, how about this Stanley thing, anyway? Any good?"
"Son," said Pete, "Stanley is a regular person."
Boland's face clouded.
"Well, I'm going out with you and have a good look at him," he said gloomily. "If I'm not satisfied with him, I'll refuse my consent. And I'll look at your mine—if you've got any mine. They used to say that when a man drinks of the waters of the Hassayampa, he can never tell the truth again. And you're from Arizona."
Pete stole a shrewd look at the young man's face.
"There is another old saying about the Hassayampa, son," he said kindly, "with even more truth to it than in that old dicho. They say that whoever drinks of the waters of the Hassayampa must come to drink again."
He bent his brows at Francis Charles.
"Good guess," admitted Boland, answering the look. "I've never been to Arizona, but I've sampled the Pecos and the Rio Grande; and I must go back 'Where the flyin'-fishes play on the road to Mandalay, where the dawn comes up like thunder'—Oh, gee! That's my real reason. I suppose that silly girl and your picturesque pardner will marry, anyhow, even if I disapprove—precious pair they'll make! And if I take a squint at the copper proposition, it will be mostly in Ferdie's interest—Ferdie is the capitalist, comparatively speaking; but he can't tear himself away from little old N'Yawk. This is his first trip West—here in Vesper. Myself, I've got only two coppers to clink together—or maybe three. We're rather overlooking Ferdie, don't you think? Mustn't do that. Might withdraw his backin'. Ferdie, speak up pretty for the gennulmun!"
"Oh, don't mind me, Mr. Johnson," said Sedgwick cheerfully. "I'm used to hearin' Boland hog the conversation, and trottin' to keep up with him. Glad to be seen on the street with him. Gives one a standing, you know. But, I say, old chappie, why didn't you come last night? Deuced anxious, we were! Thought you missed the way, or slid down your rope and got nabbed again, maybe. No end of a funk I was in, not being used to lawbreakin', except by advice of counsel. And we felt a certain delicacy about inquiring about you this morning, you know—until we heard about the big ructions at the jail. Come over to McClintock's rooms—can't you?—where we'll be all together, and tell us about it—so you won't have to tell it but the one time."
"No, sir," said Pete decidedly. "I get my breakfast first, and a large shave. Got to do credit to Stan. Then I'll go with you. Big mistake, though. Story like this gets better after bein' told a few times. I could make quite a tale of this, with a little practice."