During the rest of the morning Abner paced up and down the room adjoining his cell. He knew very well how people would regard his imprisonment and how most of them would say it served him right. He wondered how long he would have to stay in that hole. He had not the remotest hope of getting out on bail, for he knew of no one interested in his welfare who was able to put up the money whatever it might be. He thought, too, of Joe Preston. Suppose the man should die, what then? He would be tried for murder, perhaps convicted, and he would be either hung or given a life-sentence in the penitentiary. The perspiration stood out in beads on his forehead as he thought of this, and it was a relief when the jailer brought him his dinner of bread and water.
"Is that the best this hotel kin afford?" he demanded, as he took the mean meal.
"Hotel! This is no hotel," was the curt reply. "This is the Klink, and that's the food fer birds that come here. It's more'n they deserve, too."
Abner stepped up close to, the iron grate, and looked fiercely at the jailor.
"De ye know who I am?" he roared.
"H'm, I have a pretty good idea."
"Ye think ye do, ye old goat. But I guess ye'r mistaken. I'm a public benefactor, that's what I am."
"A public benefactor!"
"Sure. I did what many in this town were too cowardly to do. I gave Joe Preston the lickin' he desarved, an' this is the way I'm treated fer it. I can't eat this dry stuff. Hurry up an' bring me a piece of roast chicken, with all the fixin's an' some plum puddin', an' don't fergit the cigars, either. Them's the things fer a public benefactor."
Abner chuckled to himself as the jailor ambled away.