Twenty minutes later he was formally released from custody, and the squire began to believe that two or three more days of imprisonment would force the others to follow Jet's example.
He went at once to the hotel, paid twenty-four hours' board in advance, and on turning, after completing this transaction, found himself face to face with the manager.
"So you concluded that it wouldn't be so very much out of the way to use some of that money, eh?" the latter asked, sarcastically.
"I wrote for funds, and got fifteen dollars by the last mail."
"Was that the best you could do?"
"It wasn't to be supposed I could pay the whole amount."
"No; but since you have friends with money enough to let you loaf around this section of the country, I didn't know but that we might raise a stake somehow."
Now Jet regretted having followed Harvey's advice, for if the manager should make this same remark in the hearing of the constable, many and grave suspicions might be aroused, for, of course, the man would be on the alert for anything which needed an explanation.
"That's where you are making a big mistake," he said, with an assumption of carelessness which was far from natural. "I only wanted to stay here till I could get a job."
"That wasn't the way you talked when I met you the other day; but it doesn't make much difference now, for I am beginning to see my way out of this snarl."