Harley rose reluctantly, as he knew that Hobart would keep his word. He believed it the idlest of errands, but the jail was only a short distance from them, and the business would not take long. On the way Hobart talked to him about the three witnesses. Metzger, the cowboy, on the day of the murder, had been riding in from a ranch farther down the valley; the other two had been about the town until a short time before the departure of Boyd and Wofford for their cabin.
They reached the jail, a conspicuous stone building in the centre of the town, and were shown into the condemned man's cell. The jailer announced them with the statement:
"Tim, here's two newspaper fellers from the East wants to see you."
The prisoner was lying on a pallet in the corner of his cell, and he raised himself on his elbow when Harley and Hobart entered.
"You are writers for the papers?" he said.
"Yes, clean from New York; they are with Jimmy Grayson," the jailer answered for them.
"I don't know as I've got anythin' to say to you," continued the prisoner. "I 'ain't got no picture to give you, an' if I had one I wouldn't give it. I don't want my hangin' to be all wrote up in the papers, with pictures an' things, too, jest to please the people in the East. If I've got to die, I'd rather do it quiet and peaceful, among the boys I know. I ain't no free circus."
"We did not come to write you up; it was for another purpose," Harley hastened to say.
He was surprised at the youth of the prisoner, who obviously was not over twenty-one, a mere boy, with good features and a look half defiant, half appealing.
"Well, what did you come for, then?" asked the boy.