I got through the forenoon all right, standing around the street discussing the burglary with acquaintances I had made in the town, doing more listening than talking. At noon, when I went into the hotel for dinner, the constable, the hotel men, and the porter I met on the stairs in the early morning were standing at the bar with their heads together talking earnestly. When they saw me they quit talking and went out on the sidewalk. One glance from the constable told me I was suspected. I saw that the porter had done his deadly work; I was due for a lot of questioning. Along in the afternoon the superintendent of the mine where the payroll belonged got into town and took charge of things. There was a powwow in the magistrate’s office. I saw the hotel porter go in, and braced myself to take the blow. In a few minutes the constable came out and over to me where I stood with a crowd of natives. “Please step inside, young man,” he said. Inside a group of men were seated and I was given a chair. I was determined to answer no questions. No use in going into long, detailed explanations of my movements and have them exploded and discredited on investigation, and thus strengthen the case against myself. The magistrate began on me. “Young man, we want you to explain your business here. Who you are, where you’re from, and what you do for a living? You are suspected as the burglar who last night entered the express agent’s house and made off with four thousand and eight hundred dollars cash. You were seen entering your hotel at daylight this morning. Explain that to us.” My mind jumped back to the floggings, the dark cells with their bread and water, to my escape from jail, and to every other hardship I had accepted without weakening, and I laughed at him. Here was a little, pompous fat man blustering under his black skullcap behind a cheap table with a few legal papers on it, trying to make me talk. I said to him: “Did you ever sleep in my hotel?” “Yes,” he answered, forgetting his dignity. “Well, then, you know that the wash room and toilet are in a covered space between the two wings of the building, outside and at the rear, and to get to them you go down the back stairs and out a back door.” “Very well,” he replied, “now tell us why you were at the depot the last two times the payroll was left off. Why you followed it up to the mine, and why you followed the agent home last night.” I brazened it out with all the indignation I could muster, reminding him that I was a British subject and it was my right to stand mute and answer no questions. The mine superintendent said to the others so I could hear him: “My men want to lynch somebody; I don’t know whether I can control them.” I knew all about miners and knew they never lynched anybody anywhere. I knew I was in Canada where lynching never flourished. I turned to a group of miners at the back of the room. “This man says you want to lynch me. Before you do it, I want to know why.”