In the early afternoon the little cavalcade rode into Dry Lake. Rathburn was nodding in his saddle, nearly asleep.

“We’ll keep him here to-night till I can get the facts straight,” he heard Sheriff Neal say to Brown.

They dismounted at a small square stone building with bars on the windows. Then Rathburn was proudly led between a line of curious spectators into jail.

Three rooms comprised Dry Lake’s jail. The front of the building, for a depth of a third of the distance from the front to the rear, was divided into two of these rooms; one, the larger, being the main office, and the other, much smaller, being the constable’s private office. The balance of the building was one large room, divided into two old-fashioned cages with iron and steel bars. The doors to these cages were on either side of the door into the front office and there was an aisle between the cages and the wall separating them from the offices.

Rathburn was taken immediately to the cage on the left of the office door. Sheriff Neal hesitated as he stood in the cell with him, thought for a minute, then removed the handcuffs.

“That’s right fine of you, sheriff,” said Rathburn sleepily, but cheerfully, nevertheless.

“Oh, you’ll be watched well enough,” said Neal as he closed the barred door behind him and locked Rathburn in. “You’ll find somebody around if you try to tear the place down.”

“That wasn’t just what I was getting at, sheriff,” said the prisoner with a glitter in his eyes. “I meant it was right fine of you to give me freedom behind the bars.”

Rathburn’s taunting laugh rang in the official’s ears as the latter pushed the men with him into the outer office. Rathburn listened, yawning, to the sheriff giving instructions that the prisoner be watched constantly.

He looked about the cage which was separated from the other cell by a wall of sheet iron. It contained nothing except a bench and a stool. He pushed the bench against the stone wall at the rear and reclined upon it, using his coat for a pillow. Then he turned his face toward the wall, shading his eyes from the light, which filtered through two windows high in the wall beyond the bars on the left side by tipping his hat over his face.

Immediately he fell asleep.

The news that The Coyote had been captured, spread rapidly through the town and many came to the jail hoping they might be able to see the prisoner. All of these were denied admittance, but Sheriff Neal told the few who stated that they had been among the number the bandit had lined up at the point of his guns, that they would be called to identify The Coyote on the following day. He asked each if they were sure the bandit had two guns, and the reply in each case was in the affirmative.

“That’s funny,” Neal muttered. “He only had one gun on him.”

“More’n likely the other’s on his horse with his saddle,” Brown pointed out. “I believe he left his horse somewheres an’ made that fellow Lamy take him to the house thinking he could get something 79 to eat there, and that they wouldn’t be so likely to be seen in the open on foot. You got to remember that man’s more or less clever.”

This explanation satisfied Neal, and in the minds of the men who had been in the resort when it was held up, there was no question as to the identity of the robber. Even if they had suspected otherwise it is doubtful if they would have acknowledged it because they considered it less of an ignominy to be held up by the notorious Coyote than by a bandit of lesser reputation.

Thus did the bonds of evidence tighten about Rathburn while he slept through the late afternoon and the twilight.

When he awoke a faint yellow light dimly illuminated his surroundings. He lay thinking for several minutes. He knew night had fallen and surmised that he had slept a full eight hours. He could tell this because he was fully awake and alert. He turned noiselessly on his bench and saw that the light came from a lamp burning near the door to the outer office.

Rathburn could hear the hum of voices, and by listening intently, ascertained that two men were talking, one of whom was the sheriff. He could not recognize the voice of the other speaker as a voice he had ever heard before, and he could not hear what they were saying.

He listened dully to the voices until he heard a horse’s hoofs in front of the jail. He turned back with his face to the wall, and his hat tipped over his eyes, as a man entered the jail office with a stamp of boots and jingle of spurs.

“Hello, constable,” he heard the sheriff say. “What luck?”

“Couldn’t find the hoss,” came a disgruntled 80 voice. “Looked all afternoon an’ till it got dark for him.”

“Confound it!” exclaimed Neal. “The horse must have been somewhere aroun’ close. He sure didn’t walk down the valley.”

“That’s probably right,” said the other. “I left a couple of your men out there to keep up searching when daylight comes. That feller Lamy showed us about where they left the hosses––his hoss an’ The Coyote’s––but they wasn’t there. He said there was a bunch of wild hosses in the valley an’ that they’d probably got away an’ gone with ’em. We saw the wild hosses, but we couldn’t get anywhere near ’em––couldn’t get near enough to see if any of ’em was wearin’ saddles or not. We had some chase while it lasted, I’ll recite.”

“Did Lamy say how they came to leave their horses?” asked the sheriff in an annoyed tone.

“It was The Coyote’s orders. Thought they’d be safer in the middle of the posse or something like that. Made Lamy leave the hosses an’ run for the house an’ made him get down in the cellar with him. Don’t know if he knew Lamy lived there or not, but reckon it wouldn’t have made any difference.”

The sheriff was pacing the floor of the office as his footfalls attested. “I’ve ordered that Lamy in to-morrow. I’ve a lot more questions to ask him. Well, you might as well get a few winks, constable; Brown and the rest of ’em have hit the hay. Even the prisoner is tired out, and that’s sayin’ something for as tough a bird as he is. But I wish I had his horse. I’ve got to have his horse!”

Rathburn was smiling at the wall. He heard Neal walk to the door and look in. Receding footsteps 81 told him that the constable was leaving. For a time there was silence in the outer office.

Rathburn sat up quietly and began easing off his right boot. The boot came slowly, very slowly, as Rathburn worked at it, careful not to make any noise. Then, just as it came free, the sheriff again strode to the door and looked in.

He saw Rathburn yawning, as the boot dropped on the floor.

Rathburn looked at the sheriff sleepily as the official strode into the aisle and peered in between the bars. He tipped the bootless foot back on its toes as he lifted his other foot and tugged at the boot.

“That you, sheriff?” he asked with another yawn. “The lights are so bad I can’t see good. Guess I’m a little groggy anyway. I was too danged tired when I went to sleep to take off my boots.”

“You’ve got another ten hours to sleep,” said Neal with a scowl. “An’ you’ll have plenty of time to get rid of your saddle soreness. You’ll ride in automobiles and trains for a while an’ keep in out of the hot sun an’ the wet.”

The sheriff laughed harshly at his own words.

Rathburn let the other boot drop. “I expect I’ll get something to eat now an’ then, too?”

“Feel hungry?” asked Neal.

“Might chaw on a biscuit before I take another nap,” yawned the prisoner.

“I’ll see if I can scare you up a bite,” said the sheriff, leaving.

Rathburn heard him say something to some one in front. Then the sheriff went out of the building. The other man came in and looked at Rathburn curiously.

He was of medium build, with white hair and a face seamed and lined and red. Rathburn instantly 82 recognized in his jailer a man of the desert––possibly of the border country.

“So you’re The Coyote,” said the jailer in a rather high-pitched voice.

Rathburn winked at him. “That’s what they say,” he replied.

“You size up to him, all right,” observed the man of the desert. “An’ I can tell quick enough when I get a good look at you an’ inspect your left forearm. I’ve had your descriptions in front of my eyes on paper an’ from a dozen persons that knowed you for three years!”

“You been trailing me?” asked Rathburn curiously.

“I have; an’ it ain’t no credit to this bunch here that they got you, for I was headed in this direction myself an’ arrived ’most as soon as you did.”

“You from Arizona?” asked Rathburn, grasping his right foot in his left hand.

“I’m from Arizony an’ Mexico an’ a few other places,” was the answer. “I’ve helped catch men like you before, Coyote.”

Rathburn frowned, still keeping his hand over his right foot. “I don’t like that word, Coyote,” he said softly, holding the other’s gaze between the bars. “A coyote is a cowardly breed of animal, isn’t it?”

“An’ a tricky one,” said the jailer. “I ain’t sayin’ you’re a coward; but you’re tricky, an’ that’s bad enough.”

“Maybe so,” agreed Rathburn. “Ah––here’s our friend, his nibs, the sheriff. He went out to rustle me some grub. He wants to keep me fat for hanging!”

His laugh rang through the jail, empty save for himself and the two officers. But the temporary jailer hesitated, looking at Rathburn’s eyes, before he turned to the sheriff.

“Open the door and I’ll take it in to him,” ordered the sheriff. “Can’t get this stuff through the bars. You might keep him covered.”

The jailer’s hand flew to his hip for his gun as he also brought up a large key on a ring. He unlocked the door to the cage and held it open while he kept his gun trained upon Rathburn.

The sheriff entered and placed the food on the stool and a large bowl of coffee on the floor beside it. Then he backed out, watching Rathburn keenly as the latter sat on his bench with his right foot in his hand.

When the door clanged shut and the key rattled in the lock, Rathburn let down his right foot, took two steps, and pulled the stool to the bench. He stepped back and secured the coffee. Then he began to eat and drink, keeping his right foot tipped on its toes, while the two officials watched him attentively.

“Sheriff,” said Rathburn suddenly, between bites on a huge meat sandwich, “could you let me have a stub of a lead pencil an’ a sheet of paper to write a letter on?”

“Easy enough,” answered Neal. “Course, you know all mail that goes out of the jail is read by us before it’s delivered––if it’s delivered at all.”

“I’ll chance it,” snapped out Rathburn.

As the sheriff left to get the writing materials, with the jailer following him, doubtless for a whispered confab as to what Rathburn might be wanting to write and its possible bearing on his capture, the prisoner hastily ran his left hand down into his right sock and with some difficulty withdrew a peculiar-shaped leather case about ten inches long and nearly the width of his foot. This he put within his shirt.

When the officials returned he had finished his 84 repast and was waiting for them near the bars with a smile of gratitude on his lips.

“This may be a confession I’m going to write,” he said, grinning at Neal. “It’s going to take me a long time, I reckon, but you said I had something like ten hours for sleep, so I guess I can spare two or three for this effort at literary composition. I figure, sheriff, that this’ll be my masterpiece.”

His look puzzled the sheriff as he took the pencil and paper through the bars and returned to his bunk. He drew up the stool and sat upon it. It was a little lower than the bench, so, putting his paper on the bench, he had a fairly good makeshift desk. He began to write steadily, and after a few minutes the sheriff and jailer retired to the office.

It did not take Rathburn a quarter of an hour to write what he wished on the first of the several pieces of paper. He tore off what he had written, doubled it again and again into a small square, took out his sack of tobacco which he had been allowed to retain, and put it therein with the loose tobacco.

Then he wrote for a few minutes on the second sheet of paper.

When the sheriff looked in later he evidently was slowly and laboriously achieving a composition.

Rathburn heard the sheriff go out of the front door a few minutes later. Instantly he was alert. He drew on his boots. He surmised that the sheriff had gone out for something to eat and, though he wasn’t sure of this, it was true.

“Oh, jailer!” he called amiably.

The wrinkled face of the desert trailer appeared in the office doorway.

Rathburn looked about from his seat on the stool. “This job ain’t none too easy, as it is,” he complained. 85 “As a writer I’m a first-rate cow hand. Lemme take your knife to sharpen this pencil with. When I asked the sheriff for a stub of a pencil he took me at my word.”

“Sure I’ll let you have my knife,” said the jailer sarcastically. “How about my gun––want that, too?”

“Oh, come on, old-timer,” pleaded Rathburn. “The lead in this pencil’s worn clean down into the wood.”

“Hand it over here an’ I’ll sharpen it,” said the jailer, drawing his pocketknife.

Rathburn walked to the bars and held out the pencil. An amiable smile played on his lips. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said contritely. “I forgot it wasn’t jail etiquette to ask for a knife. But I ain’t had much experience in jail. Now according to his nibs, the sheriff, I’m in to get pretty well acquainted with ’em, eh?”

He watched the jailer as he began sharpening the pencil.

“Speaking of knives, now,” he continued in a confiding tone, “I got in a ruckus down near the border once an’ some gents started after me. One of ’em got pretty close––close enough to take some skin off my shoulder with a bullet. He just sort of compelled me to shoot back.”

“I suppose you killed him,” observed the jailer, pausing in his work of sharpening the pencil.

“I ain’t saying,” replied Rathburn. “Anyways I had a hole-up down there for a few days, an’ as luck would have it, I had to put up with a Mexican. All that Mex would do was argue that a knife was better than a gun. He claimed it was sure and made no noise––those were his hardest talking points, an’ I’ll be danged if there isn’t something in it.

“But what I was gettin’ at is that I didn’t have 86 nothing to do, an’ that Mexican got me to practicing knife throwing. You know how slick those fellows are at throwing a blade. Well, in the couple of weeks that I hung aroun’ there he coached me along till I could throw a knife as good as he could. He thought it was great sport, teaching me to throw a knife so good, that a way.

“Since I left down there I’ve sort of practiced that knife-throwing business now and then, just for fun. Anyways I thought it was just for fun. But now I see, jailer, that it was my luck protecting me. Anything you learn is liable to prove handy some time. Don’t move an inch or I’ll let you have it!”

Rathburn’s hand snapped out of his shirt and up above his right shoulder.

The man from the desert shuddered involuntarily as he saw the yellow light from the lamp play fitfully upon a keen, white blade.