But, in truth, no arrest was needed for the unhappy bride. Nothing could have tempted her to leave the place where her husband was in peril. Indeed, she was like a thorn in the side of the sheriff's ideas concerning official strictness and decorum—and rose as well as thorn; for the winsome loveliness of this suffering girl disturbed him greatly, so that he was fain to grant her privileges which ill accorded with his conception of official etiquette. It was owing to this laxness under Nell's persuasion that she was permitted to interview her husband, though separated from him by the heavy grating in the cell-door, and though fretted by the presence of the sheriff himself, who sat within ear-shot, and forbade secret communication.... Those interviews harrowed the souls of the lovers, for, though each strove to cheer the other, neither could understand how this calamity had come to pass. Nell occupied the intervals between visits to her husband in frantic efforts to devise some means of proving Jack's innocence, or in pitiable weeping, shut within her squalid hotel-room.
NELL WAS PERMITTED TO INTERVIEW HER HUSBAND.
It was in the forenoon of the day following his arrest that the prisoner had his first glimmer of hope. It came to him while he was surveying for the thousandth time the roughly-hewn timbers that made the walls of his cell. He had long ago admitted the uselessness of trying to break out, inasmuch as he had not even a penknife with which to work. Yet, now, as his glance roved the tiny room, his eyes lighted with hope.
Forthwith, Jack began plotting escape. He understood that his situation was most desperate. The sheriff, who from pride in his office had added the cell to his log-house at his own expense, was fond of sitting on guard in the adjoining room; not so much for the sake of precaution against the prisoner's escape, as for pleasure in receiving visitors, in the full majesty of his office. And Jack had heard some of the low-spoken remarks of the visitors among themselves. He knew that these men of primitive emotions looked upon him as a murderer, and were disposed to end the affair in a lynching-bee. Only the sheriff interposed between him and such a fate, and the man was by no means strong enough to stand against a mob. Therefore, Jack was convinced that the only possibility of safety lay in flight. And that flight must be made at once, or it would be too late.
Little by little, the details of a plan were evolved. He went over the matter with every care, knowing well that he risked his life on the accuracy of each detail in his device. Some ideas he rejected; others, after much testing and readjustment, were approved. In the end, he became confident that his method might win success—confident that it would.
His preparations thus complete up to the point of action, the prisoner did not delay the action itself. For that matter, the opportunity he desired at the outset was offered to him almost immediately after he had decided upon his course.
The sheriff, who was a kindly soul, apart from the sternness compelled by his ideas of high office, repeated a favor he had already shown the prisoner, by coming to the grating, and thrusting forward a cigar.
"Smoke up, young feller," he said.
Jack took the cigar with due expressions of gratitude, and he was at pains to conceal the new hopeful eagerness that filled him.