“I’m almost certain of it, Roger. I’ll never forget that face of his. I studied it pretty well when he was up for trial and we testified against him.”
“You might wait until he comes here again,” suggested the manager.
“Yes. But then we wouldn’t have the information we want,” declared Dave. “I’d rather pay out my money on that telegram and learn the truth. Then, if Jasniff was wanted by the authorities, we could make a prisoner of him right then and there.”
“That is true.”
The matter was discussed for several minutes longer, and then the two chums walked back to their quarters. Here they talked the matter over between themselves.
“We can’t send a telegram to-night; the office closes at six o’clock,” declared Dave. “We can write it out, however, and send it the first chance we get in the morning. I think Mr. Obray will let you or me ride down to the telegraph office with it.” The nearest station from which a telegram could be sent was quite a distance away, and a telephone line between the two points, while it was being erected, was not yet in operation.
Of course Frank Andrews wished to know what had taken place, and the youths told him. He shook his head sadly.
“It’s too bad! Especially with a young fellow,” he declared. “That term in prison will hang over him like a cloud all the rest of his life. Kind-hearted people may talk all they please and do all they possibly can—the fact remains that if a man has once been in prison, unless he can prove that he was innocent, very few people will care to have anything to do with him.”
“If Jasniff were a different kind of fellow I’d have a different feeling for him,” said Dave; and his face showed his earnestness. “If he had been led into crime by others it would be a different story. But so far as I can remember, he was always hot-tempered, vicious, and bound to have his own way. He was the leader in that robbery—not Merwell. And when he was captured he acted in anything but a penitent mood. On that account I can’t get up much sympathy for him.”
“He doesn’t deserve any sympathy!” cried Roger. “Why, every time I think of how he grabbed up that Indian club in the Oak Hall gymnasium and did his best to brain you with it, it makes my blood run cold!”