Pete tripped light-footed down the stairs. At the stairfoot the sheriff paused. In the cell directly opposite were two bruised and tattered inmates where there should have been but one, and that one undismantled. The sheriff surveyed the wreckage within. His jaw dropped; his face went red to the hair; his lip trembled as he pointed to the larger of the two roommates, who was, beyond doubting, Amos Poole--or some remainder of him. "How did that man get here?" demanded the sheriff in a cracked and horrified voice. "Him? Oh, I throwed him in there!" said Pete lightly. "That's the man who brought me the keys and pestered me to go away with him. Say, sheriff, better watch out! He told me he had a gun, and that he had the jailer tied and gagged." "The damned skunk didn't have no gun! All he had was a flashlight, and I broke that over his head. But he tole me the same story about the jailer--all except the gun." This testimony was volunteered by Poole's cellmate. Peter removed his cigar and looked at the "damned skunk" more closely. "Why, if it ain't Mr. Poole!" he said. "Sure, it's Poole. What in hell does he mean, then--swearin' you into jail and then breakin' you out?" "Hadn't you better ask him?" said Peter, very reasonably. "You come on down to the office, sheriff. I want you to get at the bottom of this or have the heart out of some one." He rolled a dancing eye at Poole with the word, and Poole shrank before it. "Breakfast! Bring us our breakfast!" bawled the prisoners. "Breakfast!" The sheriff dealt leniently with the uproar, realizing that these were but weakling folk and, under the influence of excitement, hardly responsible. "Brooks has been tied up all night, and is all but dead. I'll get you something as soon as I can," he said, "on condition that you stop that hullabaloo at once. Johnson, come down to the office." He telephoned a hurry call to a restaurant, Brooks, the jailer, being plainly incapable of furnishing breakfast. Then he turned to Pete. "What is this, Johnson? A plant?" Pete's nose quivered. "Sure! It was a plant from the first. The Pooles were hired to set upon me. This one was sent, masked, to tell me to break out. Then, as I figure it, I was to be betrayed back again, to get two or three years in the pen for breaking jail. Nice little scheme!" "Who did it? For Poole, if you're not lying, was only a tool." "Sheriff," said Pete, "pass your hand through my hair and feel there, and look at my face. See any scars? Quite a lot of 'em? And all in front? Men like me don't have to lie. They pay for what they break. You go back up there and get after Poole. He'll tell you. Any man that will do what he did to me, for money, will squeal on his employer. Sure!" Overhead the hammering and shouting broke out afresh. "There," said the sheriff regretfully; "now I'll have to make those fellows go without anything to eat till dinner-time."