This time he sat up with a jerk.
"Silas," he thundered, "is that you again?"
It was. It was moreover a Silas arrogant and cautious who peered in through the bars and stated profanely that he had a marshal with him, a marshal with a badge.
Kenny considered the new complication with a startled frown. It either spelled retreat in a harrowing dawn with the marshal and Silas at his heels or a temporary sojourn in a village jail. And Kenny detested any form of humiliation or discomfort.
"Silas," he said wearily, "this is a rotten corncrib. It's sprained and spavined and Lord knows what. It's full of bugs and ants and spiders and dust and passé corncobs and it's architecturally incorrect, but if you and the marshal will hike off somewhere else and brag about his badge, I'll buy it. I've got to sleep."
Speechless, Silas stared through the slats and continued to stare until his stupefied face became a source of irritation. Kenny lost his temper. He raised his voice.
"You petrified lout! I said I'd buy it."
The marshal, whose bravery seemed less in evidence than his badge, summoned Silas to a point of safety. They conferred in a murmur. Kenny viciously killed a spider and strained his ears in vain to hear the purport of the consultation.
After an interval of heated debate Silas returned and with an air of scepticism demanded twenty-five dollars. When Kenny, who never questioned the price of anything, argued the point from motives of pure antagonism, he called the marshal. The marshal was conservative. He dallied with the need of coming. Kenny took advantage of a dispute among the enemy to count out the bills in concessional disgust and shove them through the slats. Silas, turning, brushed them with his nose and leaped back in terror. Then his hand shot upwards in an avaricious clutch. The amazed pair counted the bills and departed, ever after confusing Kenny's identity with that of a famous lunatic addicted to escapes.
Having detected all forms of degeneracy in the farmer's face Kenny barricaded the door with a loose plank from the upper step, made sure it would fall easily with a clatter, examined his revolver and had his sleep out, thanks to the fact that the day proved cloudy. He awoke to flies and disillusion. His head ached. His back ached. There was a spider in his hat. He wanted water. He wanted a brook equipped with a shower-bath and he wanted the luxury of eating what he chose. Never, never would he eat cheese again unless the hand of famine gripped him. Perhaps not then. The sum of his discontent plunged him into a black temper in which he rehearsed the details of his morning's misadventure with growing spleen and wished sincerely that Silas would appear again and roar at him. And, then, gingerly descending the rickety steps, Kenny remembered that the corncrib was his.