“You can talk with him through the bars of his cell, standin’ outside,” said the jailer, who was of the honest kind. “Against the rules, ye see, to do otherwise, when a man is in hyer on a charge of murder.”
The little man was sure that was all he would care to do. He even asked if there would not possibly be danger, even though he stood outside in the jail corridor.
Shepard laughed hoarsely at that; it was not a joke, it seemed, for the little man actually trembled.
“Well, he’s shore some quick on the shoot,” avowed Shepard; “but y’ needn’t be afraid of him; he ain’t got a gun on him. Been searched thoroughly; I seen to it m’self.”
When they came to the cell occupied by Juniper Joe the little man stood back against the opposite wall of the corridor, apparently fearing that Juniper Joe might reach out his long arms and seize him, like some caged gorilla.
Shepard stepped up to the cell door, thus putting himself in front of the little man.
The jailer was hazy as to what took place after that; but something whacked him on the back of the head, and he fell against the cell door, then tumbled heavily to the floor.
When he came to himself, half an hour afterward, he was still hazy; but he could see that the cell door was open and that Juniper Joe was gone.
Feeling in his pockets, he found that his keys and his pistols were gone, too.
That aroused him.