It was a rule of the guardhouse that a prisoner must lie with his feet to the door, so that his head could be seen by the passing guard. Just opposite our door a lamp was bracketed on the wall. What light it gave shone through the bars directly on our faces while we slept. Rules or no rules, a man would shade his face with his arm or a corner of the quilt, when the lamp-glare struck in his eyes. And Barreau, perhaps with that very emergency in mind, had slept with his hat pulled over his face. None of the guards had voiced objection. They could see him easily enough. Now, this very practice made it possible for him to fool them with a trick that is as old as prison-breaking itself. Skillfully he had arranged the covers to give the outline of a body, and his hat he left tilted over the place where his head had rested. The simplicity of the thing, I dare say, is what made it a success. At least it fulfilled its purpose that night. Here a prisoner snored, and there another turned on his bunk with faint scrapings against the wall. Out in front the Policemen conversed in lowered tones. I could hear every sound in the building, it seemed; the movements of sleeping men, the scurrying of a rat, the crackle of a match when one of the guards lit his pipe. But I did not hear that for which my ears were strained, and I was thankful. Twice a trooper made the round, seeing nothing amiss—although I imagined the thump of my heart echoed into the corridor when he looked in on me and let his glance travel over the place where Slowfoot George should have been—but was not. It was nearing the time for his return, and I sat up, nerving myself to give the alarm. For to clear me of complicity and the penalty thereof, Barreau had instructed me to apprise them after an hour. I was to tell them that he was armed, and so compelled me to keep silent while he worked. And I was to say that he had but gone. There would be nothing but his foot-prints, and by those they could not reckon the time of his flight. As I sat there waiting for the guard and steeling myself to lie boldly, shamelessly, for Barreau’s sake and my own, my gaze rested speculatively on the pieces of flooring I had laid over the hole. I intended to kick them aside as I rushed to the window and gabbled my tale to the guard. But I did not rush to the window nor did I gabble to the guard, for I saw the pieces of plank slide softly apart and a hand came through the opening thus made—a hand that waved imperative warning for me to lie down. The guard passed as I drew the cover over me. He barely glanced in. Before the squeak of his chair out in front told of his settling down, I was up on elbow, staring.