"Nope," scowled Pecos, and there the matter dropped. After the affair of the night before he had expected to be put in irons, at least, or thrown into the dungeon, but nobody seemed to be worrying about him, and the prison routine went on as usual. The drunks in the jag-cell woke up and began to wrangle; the long-termers in the deck above scuffled sullenly around over the resounding boiler plate; and from the outer office they could hear the cheerful voices of old-timers and politicians discussing affairs of state. A long-term trusty came clattering down the iron stairs and passed out through the two barred doors to work up an appetite for breakfast by mowing the court-house lawn. As for Pecos, he was used to having his breakfast early and his Trojan exertions of the night before had left him gaunted, though he carried off his stoic part bravely. Nevertheless he showed a more than human interest in the steel front gate, and when at last, just as the clock tolled nine, it swung open, admitting the Chinese _restaurateur_ who contracted for their meals, there was a general chorus of approval. Hung Wo was the name of this caterer to the incarcerated, and he looked it; but though his face was not designed for a laughing picture his shoulders were freighted with two enormous cans which more than made up for that. Without a word to any one he lowered the cans to the floor, jerked off the covers, and began to dish up on the prison plates. To every man he gave exactly the same—a big spoonful of beans, a potato, a hunk of meat, half a loaf of bread, and a piece of pie—served with the rapidity of an automaton. Without waiting for orders the prisoners retreated noisily into their cells and waited, the more fastidious shoving sheets of newspaper through the small openings at the bottom of their doors to keep their plates off the floor. But here again there was trouble. The incessant hammering of pint coffee cups emphasized the starved impatience of the inmates; the food grew cold on the plates; only one thing lay in the way of the belated breakfast—Pecos refused to go into a cell. Before the fall of the kangaroo court it had been the privilege and prerogative of Mike Slattery to remain in the corridor and assist in the distribution of the food, but Mike was in the bridal chamber now with his jowls swathed in cotton, sucking a little nourishment through a tube. Pete Monat was there also, his head bandaged to the limit of the physician's art, and mourning the fate which had left him such a hard-looking mug on the eve of a jury trial. The verdict would be guilty, that was a cinch. But at least Pete was able to eat his breakfast, whereas there were about forty avid kangaroos in the tanks who were raising their combined voices in one agonizing appeal for food. It was a desperate situation, but Pecos, as usual, was obdurate. "Let the Chink come in—I won't hurt 'im!" he said; but Bill Todhunter shook his head. "The Chink won't come," he said.