A month passed, and then the chain that was slowly drawing the two men together suddenly tightened. One morning the order came down from the office of the Captain that the prisoners' straw beds were to be taken out into the stockyard and burnt. The beds were not old, but dirty and damp and full of foul odors. The officers of the settlement said this was due to the filthy habits of the prisoners. The prisoners on their part said it came of the pestilential hovels they were compelled to live in, where the ground was a bog, the walls and roof were a rotten coffin, and the air was heavy and lifeless. Since the change of warders, there had been a gradual decline in the humanity with which they had been treated, and to burn up their old beds without giving them new ones was to deprive them of the last comfort that separated the condition of human beings from that of beasts of the field.
But the Captain of the Mines was in no humor to bandy parts with his prisoners, and in ordering that the beds should be burnt to prevent an outbreak of disease, he appointed that the prisoner B 25, should be told off to do the work. Now B 25 was the prison name of Red Jason, and he was selected by reason of his great bodily strength, not so much because the beds required it, as from fear of the rebellion of the poor souls who were to lose them.
So at the point of a musket Red Jason was driven on to his bad work, and sullenly he went through it, muttering deep oaths from between his grinding teeth, until he came to the log hut where Michael Sunlocks slept, and there he saw again the face that had haunted his memory.
"This bed is dry and sound," said Michael Sunlocks, "and you shall not take it."
"Away with it," shouted the warder to Jason, who had seemed to hesitate.
"It is good and wholesome, let him keep it," said Jason.
"Go on with your work," cried the warder, and the lock of his musket clicked.
"Civilized men give straw to their dogs to lie on," said Michael Sunlocks.
"It depends what dogs they are," sneered the warder.
"If you take our beds, this place will be worse than an empty kennel," said Michael Sunlocks.