There was something in the quality of the corporal's voice that schooled Mudgett to instant obedience. Without a word, the trapper shambled across the floor and hoisted himself into the bunk.
Dexter turned next to the handcuffed man. "You in the upper berth," he commanded.
The stranger stood backed against the logs of the opposite wall, with his shoulders drooping, his arms hanging limply. But as the officer addressed him he looked up with his somber stare. He must have appreciated the futility of resistance however, and after a second's hesitation he lurched forward, and moved towards the bunk on heavy, dragging feet.
"You still prefer to remain nameless?" inquired the corporal.
The prisoner made no answer, but as he stumbled past Dexter he shot him a glance so charged with venom that even the seasoned man-hunter was startled.
The officer refrained from further remarks, and stood by with compressed lips until the man had climbed into the upper berth. Then, in silence, he fastened the booted feet together with unbreakable rawhide. This done, he pushed the end of the thong between a crack of the foot logs, drew it taut, and secured it to the outer bunk post, where the knot could not possibly be reached by manacled hands. Mudgett's feet then were similarly bound, and lashed flat against the end of the bunk.
"I'll ease 'em up a bit when I come back," Dexter promised. "Meanwhile you'll have to make the best of it."
Serene in the knowledge that his prisoners would not escape during his absence, he walked out of the cabin and slammed the door behind him.
It was pitch dark outside, and growing colder. The corporal felt his way across the clearing to the thicket where he had left Susy, and was not greatly astonished to find that the pony had disappeared. His pocket lamp revealed her hoof prints leading through the timber, and he followed her for a half mile or so across the slope, and finally overtook her in an open ravine where she had smelled out a patch of elk hay that could be pawed up from under the snow.
She came back a few steps to meet him, and meekly nudged him with her forehead while she was receiving her deserved scolding. Dexter relieved her of the grim burden she carried. He made a hammock sling of his bed tarp and picket rope; and as the Indians protect their dead, so he hoisted among scented tree branches the muffled figure of his one-time comrade; and left him for the night. This melancholy service rendered, he took off Susy's saddle, removed the bit from her mouth, and permitted her to remain in the gulley where she had found shelter and pasturage for herself.