“Four of ’em,” answered the barber. “Two got away. They wuz six all told. When th’ deputies went at ’em, three scooted up a wood road in th’ ravine up there. Th’ boys cut round and got two of ’em. One got away, but they know pretty much what he looks like, an’ he is bound to be jugged in a day or two. They may get th’ other feller too. I don’t know ’bout it, ’cause them deputies are boastin’ cusses.” “Heard thet a bareheaded man wuz seen snoopin’ about a barn four or five mile below here yesterday,” drawled a man whom I had not noticed. He was sitting in the rear of the shop. I started so visibly that the barber inquired of me, very solicitously, as to whether or not the razor was keen enough. I said it pulled a little, whereupon he stropped it noisily. In the meantime I had a moment in which to steady my nerves and get a peep from under my eyebrows at the new speaker. I felt reassured then, for he didn’t have the appearance of being any too quick-witted. Nevertheless I had been seen by some one in my tramping. I knew that I must be cautious. As I listened to the whole story, recounted and discussed, I thought of the pig-headed Utley and of how my words had come true, even to the deputies finally locating us by the smoke at the old shanty in the woods. I was glad that, if any of us must be arrested, he had come in for his share of the harvest of his making. I may as well add, right here, that his stubbornness cost four of our party the combined sentence to prison of fifty-four years. It was a costly chicken indeed. My thoughts were interrupted at this point by the barber asking me to have my head shampooed. To my reply in the negative, he insisted that my scalp would be ruined, it being covered with dust, and that my hair, too, was full of hayseed and ought to be cleaned. I explained that I’d been baling hay for a couple of days, that I really ought to have my head washed, but that I’d come in the next day, when I had more time. I spent no more minutes there than necessary, after the half-hour edifying conversation I was compelled to hear. Getting out, I went to the opposite side of the street, and, securing a convenient doorway for a shadow, remained there ten minutes, intently watching the barber shop. To my relief I saw nothing that made me think any one there suspected me of being one of the Cadiz bank burglars. CHAPTER VI ’TWAS A SWEET BABE