Rathburn’s eyes held the other’s as completely as would have been the case if he were invested with a power to charm in some occult way. Moreover, every trace of his amiable, confiding smile was gone. His gaze was hard and cold and gleaming. His face was drawn into grim lines. When he spoke he talked smoothly, rapidly, and with an edge to his words which convinced his listener that he was in deadly earnest.

“I’m not used to jails, my friend, an’ I don’t aim to stay here. You’re not very far away an’ these bars are wide enough for me to miss ’em; but I don’t think I could miss you.”

The jailer looked in horror at the gleaming knife which Rathburn held by its hilt with the blade pointing backward. The jailer was from the border; he knew the awful possibilities of a quick motion of the wrist in that position, a half turn of the knife as it streaked toward its target. He shuddered again.

“Now just edge this way about two steps so your holster will be against the bars,” Rathburn instructed. “I can drop you where you stand, reach through the bars an’ drag you close if need be; but I’m banking on you having some good sense.”

The jailer, without moving the hands which held the pencil and his pocketknife, sidled up against the bars.

Rathburn leaned forward. Keeping his right hand high and tipped back, ready for the throw, he reached 88 out with his left, just through the bars, and secured the jailer’s gun.

“Now it’s all off,” he said quietly. “If the sheriff or anybody else comes before I get out of here I’m just naturally going to have to live up to the reputation for shooting that they’ve fastened on me. Unlock the door.”

The jailer wet his lips with his tongue. The pencil and pocketknife fell to the floor. Covered by his own gun, now in Rathburn’s hand, he moved to the door, brought out his key, and opened it. Still keeping him covered, Rathburn backed to the bench, snatched up his coat, and walked out of the cage, motioning to the jailer to precede him into the office.

There he slipped the gun in his holster and put on his coat. The jailer reckoned better than to try to leap upon him while he was thus engaged; the prisoner’s speed with a six-gun was well known.

Rathburn drew a peculiar leather case from within his shirt, put the knife in it, and stowed it away in a pocket. Then he turned on the jailer.

“Maybe you think that was a mean trick––resorting to a knife,” he said pleasantly; “but all is fair in love and war and when a man’s in jail. You better sort of stand in one place while I look around a bit.”

He backed behind the desk in the big office, opened two or three drawers, and brought out a pair of handcuffs. He moved around in front of the jailer again.

“Hold out your hands,” he commanded. “That’s it.” He snapped the handcuffs on with one hand while he kept the other on the butt of his gun.

“You don’t seem to have much to say,” he commented.

“What’s the use?” said the jailer. “I know when a man’s got me dead to rights. But I’ll be on your 89 trail again, an’ if I ever get within shootin’ distance of you an’ see you first, you’ll never get another chance to pull a knife.”

“Well said,” Rathburn admitted. “Now we understand each other. But I don’t intend for you to ever get within shooting distance of me.”

Rathburn glanced casually about. “Now it seems to me,” he resumed, “that most of these fellows who gum up their jail breaks make a mistake by hurrying. Suppose you just walk natural-like through that door and into the cage I just had the foresight to leave. That’s it––right on in.”

He turned the key which the jailer had left in the lock. “Now you’re all right unless you start hollering,” said Rathburn.

He stood quietly in the doorway between the office and the cages. The man from the desert studied him. He saw a variety of expressions flit over Rathburn’s face––anger, determination, scorn, resolve. He was deliberately ignoring his opportunity to make his escape while conditions were propitious; he was waiting!

Although the jailer felt the urge to cry out in an endeavor to make himself heard outside the jail and thus bring help, something in the bearing of the man standing in the doorway made him keenly curious to watch the drama which he knew must be enacted sooner or later before his eyes, for The Coyote was certainly waiting for the sheriff.

Rathburn now drew the jailer’s gun from his own holster and toyed with it to get its “feel” and balance. He dropped it back into the holster and in a wink of an eyelid it was back in his hand. The man from the desert gasped at the lightning rapidity of the draw. Time and again the gun virtually leaped from the holster into The Coyote’s hand at his hip, ready to spit forth leaden death. The jailer drew a 90 long breath. The man was accustoming himself to the weapon which had come into his possession, making sure of it. Now he again stood motionless in the doorway, waiting––waiting–––

Boots stamped upon the steps outside, and Rathburn drew back from the doorway in the aisle before the cages.

The front door opened and a man entered.

Both the man in the cage and the man in the aisle recognized the sheriff’s step as Neal closed the door, paused for a look about the office, and then walked toward the door leading into the jail proper.

The jailer opened his mouth to sound a warning, but something in Rathburn’s gaze and posture held him silent. Rathburn’s body was tense; his gaze was glued to the doorway; his right hand with its slim, brown, tapered fingers, hung above the gun at his side.

The sheriff loomed in the doorway. Without a flicker of surprise in his eyes he took in the situation. His lids half closed as his lips tightened to a thin, white line. He met Rathburn’s gaze and knew that he now faced The Coyote in the role which had won him his sinister reputation.

“Did I mention to you that I wasn’t used to jails, sheriff?” said Rathburn evenly, his words carrying crisp and clear. “I don’t fancy ’em. But I needed the sleep and the meal. Now I’m going. Do you recollect I said no one ever took my gun from me but what I got it back? I had to borrow this one from the gent in the cage. I’ll take my gun, sheriff––now!”

Neal had watched him closely. He saw that while he was speaking The Coyote did not for an instant relax his vigilance. The merest resemblance of a move would precipitate gun play.

He turned abruptly, and with Rathburn following 91 him closely, went into the private room off the jail office. He pointed to the other’s gun which lay upon the flat desk where many had curiously inspected it.

Rathburn took it in his left hand and ascertained at a glance that it wasn’t loaded. Therefore he elected to carry it in his left hand.

“I won’t take a chance on feeding it right now, sheriff,” he said. “Under the circumstances it would be right awkward. If you make up your mind to draw I’ll have to depend on a strange gun.”

Sheriff Neal’s eyes glittered; his lips parted just a little.

“Now if you’ll walk back toward the cage, sheriff,” Rathburn prompted. “Correct––don’t stumble.”

Neal backed slowly out of the door, through the second door into the aisle before the cages, watching Rathburn like a cat.

Rathburn slipped his own weapon into his left hip pocket and with his left hand dug into his trousers pocket for the key to the cage. He didn’t take his eyes from Neal’s as he brought it out and inserted it in the lock. His right hand continued to hang above the gun he had taken from the jailer.

“Sheriff,” he said with a cold ring in his voice, “this may seem like an insult, but I’m goin’ to ask you to unlock that cage and go in. You can take your time if you want, but I warn you fair that if any one should start coming up the steps outside I’ll try to smoke you up.”

For answer Neal, with the glitter still in his eyes, stepped to the cage door, unlocked it, and swung it open.

He took a step, whirled like a flash––and the deafening report of guns crashed and reverberated within the jail’s walls.

Neal staggered back within the cage, his gun clattering 92 to the floor, his right hand dropping to his side.

“If I hadn’t been up against a strange gun I wouldn’t have hit your finger, sheriff,” said Rathburn mockingly. “I was shootin’ at your gun.”

He shut the cage door quickly, locked it, and stuck the key in his pocket. Then he threw the jailer’s gun in through the bars and thrust his own weapon in its holster.

“I want you gentlemen inside, an’ armed,” he said laughingly. “If the jailer will be so good as to read what’s written on the paper on the bench, he’ll learn something to his advantage. Sheriff, you an’ Brown were wrong in this, but the devil of it is you’ll never know why.”

He left Neal pondering this cryptic sally, ran to the front door, opened it, and disappeared.

Neal clutched his injured fingers and swore freely, although there was amazement in his eyes. He could have been killed like a rat in a trap if The Coyote had felt the whim.

The man from the desert stepped to the bench and read on the sheet of paper:

If anybody ever gets to read this they will know that what I said about learning to throw a knife is true. I can do it. I’ve carried that knife in a special case that would fit in my sock and boot for just such an emergency as came up to-night. But I never would have throwed it. It would be against my ethics.

The man from the desert swore softly. Then he hurriedly picked up his gun and fired five shots to attract attention.