"Well, why shouldn't you let my friend Diamond go? We were up against six fellows, and it seems that we got the worst of it. Those chaps are the ones who should be arrested."
"But we didn't catch 'em."
"You caught us because we had been foully knocked out by the crowd," declared Jack. "We were taken at
an advantage, and did not have any kind of a show. Now are we to suffer while the ones who were to blame go free?"
"You made a big mistake in coming into this kind of a joint," declared the officer, severely. "And you were arrested at the same time with Plug Kirby, a tough of the lowest order. That's what gits you in a hole. If we lets you go, we've got to let him go."
Then Diamond explained how Kirby happened to be in the room, and Frank added light to the matter by telling how he came to know the thug, who had been hired to whip him once on a time, but who had received a severe thumping instead.
"And that is how it happens that he claims you for his friend?" asked Magoon, grinning. "You hammered friendship into him?"
"That's right," said Frank. "He has been ready to do anything for me ever since that night."
"Well, I must say that's the first thing I ever knowed about Plug Kirby that made me feel like goin' easy with him! And he was fighting for you against the crowd? I'll have a word with Murphy."
Two of the officers drew aside, while the third stood