"Oh, that's all right—me takum other feller's pie, this time—you come in!"
"Allite!" agreed the simple-minded Oriental, and when the iron doors rolled apart he entered without a quiver. Back where he came from a bargain is a bargain and it is a poor boss indeed who does not demand his rake-off. The day was won and, throwing back his head imperiously, Pecos stalked down the line of cells until he came to the one where the inmates were making the most noise.
"Here!" he said, and when they looked up he remarked: "You fellers are too gay to suit me—I'll jest dock you your pieces of pie!" And when the Chinaman arrived Pecos carefully lifted the pie from each plate and piled all up on his own. "This'll teach you to keep your mouths shut!" he observed, and retiring to the iron gates he squatted down on his heels and ate greedily.
"Well, the son-of-a-gun," murmured Bill Todhunter, as he took notice of this final triumph, and the men in the cells became as quiet as a cage of whip-broke beasts when the lion tamer stands in their midst. As Pecos Dalhart drank his second cup of coffee and finished up the last slab of pie a realizing sense of his mastery came over him and he smiled grimly at the watchful faces that peered out through the cell gratings, blinking and mowing like monkeys in a zoo. They were beaten, that was plain, but somehow as he looked them over he was conscious of a primordial cunning written on every savage visage—they bowed before him; but like the leopards before their tamer, they crouched, too. That was it—they crouched and bided their time, and when the time came they would hurl themselves at his throat. But what was it for which they were waiting? All the morning he pondered on it as he paced to and fro or sat with his back to the bars, watching. Then, as the day warmed up and his head sank momentarily against his breast he woke with a start to behold a prison-bleached hand reaching, reaching for his strap. Instantly he rose up from his place and dealt out a just retribution, laying on his strap with the accuracy of a horse-wrangler, but even with the howling of his victim in his ears he was afraid, for he read the hidden meaning of that act. With the nerveless patience of the beast they were waiting for him to go to sleep!
Once before, on the open range, Pecos Dalhart had arrayed himself against society, and lost, even as he was losing now. Sooner or later, by day or by night, these skulking hyenas of the jail-pack would catch him asleep, and he shuddered to think how they might mangle him. He saw it clearly now, the fate of the man who stands alone, without a friend to watch over him or a government to protect his life. Not in two hurly-burly days and nights had he closed his bloodshot eyes, and as the heaviness of sleep crept upon him he paced up and down the corridor, wrestling with the spectre that was stealing away his wits and hoping against hope that Boone Morgan would come to his aid, for Boone had seen his finish from the first. In sodden abandonment to his destiny he looked one of the cells over to see if it could be barricaded, but when one door was open they were all open and there was no protection against stealth or assault. He had not even the protection of the cave-dweller who, when sleep overcame him, could retire and roll a great stone against his door. Yet as the possession of sleep took hold upon him he routed out the inmates of the cell nearest to the gate, climbed into the upper bunk and lay there, rigid, fighting to keep awake.
It was quiet now and the shuffling of the long-termers above him came fainter and fainter; some drunk out in the jag-cell woke up from his long slumber and began to sing mournfully; and Pecos, struggling against the deadly anæsthetic of his weariness, listened intently to every word.
"My friends and relations has caused a separation,"
chanted the dirge-like voice of the singer,
"Concerning the part of some favorite one.