"There, there!" he crooned benevolently. "Take it easy. What's the trouble? I hate to see you all worked up like this, for you was sure mighty white to me yesterday. Nicest jail I ever was in. But there was a thundering racket downstairs last night. I ain't complainin' none--I wouldn't be that ungrateful, after all you done for me. But I didn't get a good night's rest. Wish you'd put me in another cell to-night. There was folks droppin' in here at all hours of the night, pesterin' me. I didn't sleep good at all." "Dropping in? What in hell do you mean?" gurgled the sheriff, still pointing to rope and saw. "Why, sheriff, what's the matter? Aren't you a little mite petulant this A.M.? What have I done that you should be so short to me?" "That's what I want to know. What have you been doing here?" "I ain't been doing nothin', I tell you--except stayin' here, where I belong," said Pete virtuously. His eye followed the sheriff's pointing finger, and rested, without a qualm, on the evidence. The sheriff laid a trembling hand on the coiled rope. "How'd you get this in, damn you?" "That rope? Oh, a fellow shoved it through the bars. Wanted me to saw my way out and go with him, I reckon. I didn't want to argue with him, so I just took it and didn't let on I wasn't comin'. Wasn't that right? Why, I thought you'd be pleased! I couldn't have any way of knowin' that you'd take it like this." "Shoved it in through a third-story window?" Pete's ingenuous face took on an injured look. "I reckon maybe he stood on his tip-toes," he admitted. "Who was it?" "I don't know," said Pete truthfully. "He didn't speak and I didn't see him. Maybe he didn't want me to break jail; but I thought, seein' the saw and all, he had some such idea in mind." "Did he bring the keys, too?" "Oh, no--that was another man entirely. He came a little later. And he sure wanted me to quit jail; because he said so. But I wouldn't go, sheriff. I thought you wouldn't like it. Say, you ought to sit down, feller. You're going to have apoplexy one of these days, sure as you're a foot high!" "You come downstairs with me," said the angry Barton. "I'll get at the bottom of this or I'll have your heart out of you." "All right, sheriff. Just you wait till I get dressed." Peter laced his shoes, put on his hat, and laid tie, coat, and vest negligently across the hollow of his arm. "I can't do my tie good unless I got a looking-glass," he explained, and paused to light a cigar. "Have one, sheriff," he said with hospitable urgency. "Get out of here!" shouted the enraged officer.