I had feared that the thing would fall off before we were ready and spoil our escape. The stick seemed too short to furnish the leverage needed. I looked about for something better, feeling satisfied I wouldn’t find it in the cell. Suddenly it flashed across me that I could use a part of the iron bedstead, and I cut off one of its legs, and we went at the work again like madmen, as time was fast leaving us in a sore predicament. Even the new lever didn’t avail us anything further than to show me that we had made the opening in the inner trellises too small. We were confronting a critical situation indeed. It would soon be daylight, and the jailer would call with our morning meal; and if the aperture in the grating was not filled, we could not expect anything but discovery. “What can we do, White?” asked young Woods, pale-faced. It was bad enough, he thought, to be in jail for burglary without facing a charge of attempting to escape from it. I recalled we had cosmetic. Perhaps the iron-work could be kept in place with it until we could get something better. I put the patches of grating back in their places and filled the crevices with the cosmetic. It didn’t seem to me they would stay in. Any vibration, I thought, might tumble them out. “It’s the best we can do, Woods,” I said, not cheerfully; “and as to that lame bed, we’ll have to be mighty careful it doesn’t betray us. We’ll see that it is carefully made,--no one can do that job so well this morning as one of us.” “I’ll be the chambermaid,” Woods said, with a laugh that had a false ring in it. “By cracky, how my back hurts!” I said, with a groan, as I doubled forward and hobbled about the cell. “I never had such a peculiar pain in my life.” “Must have caught it from the open window,” suggested the young man. “Hope it won’t make you sick. Better get a porous plaster from Aldrich. Mother allers uses ’em.” “The ordinary kind won’t cure my pain, lad,” I answered, with a laugh and straightening up; “I’ve got to have some pitch--the real pine. Nothing else will relieve me.” Woods looked mystified. “Wait,” said I. When Jailer Aldrich brought in breakfast, he was sorry to see me in such “rheumatiz” distress, and I had little difficulty in inducing him to fetch me a quantity of pitch with which to make a “home-made” porous plaster. It was to be differently applied than he dreamed. It was not difficult to obtain the pitch, because Aldrich usually supplied the prisoners with any necessities.