“Sheriff,” broke in Bull Hunter, “it’s kind of you to think of all this, but I don’t want the reward.”
The sheriff gaped.
“You see,” said Bull Hunter, “I’ve just come in to look things over, to see if Reeve was really here. That’s all.”
They were interrupted by the sound of a blast behind the building.
“Chopping out a foundation for a new jail,” explained the sheriff. “What to see it?”
Bull assented, and as they went out and around the building, the sheriff went on: “This old jail of ours is a pretty rickety affair. One of these days them brick walls’ll tumble down. We’d been figuring on putting up a new one for some time, and that little jail-busting stunt of Reeve’s woke us up. Boys been hard at the foundations ever since. We’re going to have a cellar, as you see. Main trouble is that they hit rock, right under the surface, and they’re having to bite it out with powder. Hello, there’s a whopper!”
They had come around to the rear of the jail by this time, and they saw two men struggling out with a ponderous, jagged rock which had been torn loose by the last explosion. Other rocks in piles and heaps of dirt had been taken from a small rectangular excavation.
“The new walls are going to be stone,” said the sheriff, “and then we’ll have something that’ll keep us safe and sound. Until that time,” he went on, as they turned back, ”we need good deputies handy. Wonder if you’d think about settling down here? Of course you don’t mean what you said about refusing the reward. Why, man, add up all that’s offered by some and sundry, and it comes to round about ten thousand!”
“I’ll think it over,” said Bull. “Meantime I’d like to see Reeve if I may.”
The sheriff was perfectly cordial. He took Bull to the outer room and pointed to a door. “That leads to the jail room. Nobody but Reeve in it. He’s got no weapons, of course. Think you could trust yourself in there alone with him?”
It was exactly what Bull wanted. He smiled, and the sheriff unlocked the door and waved Bull inside.
It was a low, square room, so dark that he could barely make out Pete Reeve, smoking unconcernedly at the far end of it. The sheriff closed the door, and they were alone. But Pete Reeve, eying the visitor from head to foot, seemed to be quite unaware of his presence.
Bull crossed the room to him and stood above the cot where the little man sat. He seemed smaller than ever; his hair was grayer; now that the law had him in its grip he seemed to have aged ten years. Put him out in the open on a strong horse, and he would soon recover his vigor. But now Bull Hunter looked down on him with pity and a touch of horror.
“I don’t expect you to talk to me, Pete,” he said gently. “If you had a gun with you, I know the sort of talk you’d make. You haven’t, and I don’t blame you much for not speaking. But the point is that Dunkin has shown himself the same sort of skunk that I told you he was. You thought he was worth fighting for; but he wasn’t. He run off and left you cold in the lurch, Pete. That’s his kind.
“I’ve come to tell you that I’m going to get you out, or do something that’ll put me in here with you.”
There was one spark of light in the eyes of the little man; it went out almost at once. Then he said slowly: “And how are you going to break in?”
“Through that wall,” answered Bull instantly. He pointed to the back wall of the jail. “That door into the outside room opens back. Can you wedge it to-night, so’s it can’t be opened easy, in case the guards try to run in?”
Pete Reeve stood up suddenly and gripped the arm of the giant. “Why, boy,” he answered, “I think you mean business. But what about the wall? You don’t mean to come through a big brick wall?”
“I probably won’t be able to,” said Bull Hunter, “but I’m going to try. You do your part about the door.”
“One thing else,” said Pete Reeve. “Have you got a gun on you besides the one in your holster?”
“I always have,” said Bull. “You taught me that, Pete.”
The little man rubbed his hands in an ecstasy. “Good boy! Give me that extra gun and I’ll do my own share about getting myself out.”
Bull shook his head. “When we make the break to-night we’re going to get away without shooting a gun, or else let ourselves drop without firing back. Is that straight to you, Pete?”
“It’s crazy, that’s what it is. No sense to it. Whoever heard of breaking jail without a gun play?”
“We’ll make history, then,” replied Bull Hunter. “What I say goes to-night.”
“Not in a thousand years.”
“Are you going to stay and wait for the rope? Rather do that than die full of good, honest lead?”
“Stop, Bull,” said Reeve. “The hangman’s knot is tied under my ear every night in my dreams. You win, Bull. What you say goes for to-night.”
Bull shook hands with him silently, and they parted.
Chapter XXII
The Two Versions
There were two versions of what happened that night in White River, that most historic of all nights in the town. The one is the version of Mrs. Caswell; and the other is the version of the sheriff.
Mrs. Caswell lived in the little house opposite the rear of the jail. As she told the story, the night was so very warm that she could not sleep. Moreover, being an old woman of sixty-five, her sleep at all times was easily disturbed.
She tossed in her bed for a long time and finally got up and put on a dress and went to sit on her little veranda and watch the stars. Because, as she said, stars are “tolerable quieting when you pick ‘em out, one by one, and look hard.”
This night, however, the stars were dimmed by the whitest of white moonlight. So brilliant was the moon indeed, that it dazzled the eyes of Mrs. Caswell, and she looked down to the earth instead.
And so it happened that she saw a giant out of a fairy tale walk slowly up to the rear of the jail. He was so huge, even at that distance, that she adjusted her glasses and stared again to make sure.
This huge man, having come to the rear of the jail, looked about him for a moment, as though searching for something on the ground. At length he seemed to have found what he wanted. He stooped and rose again, bearing a large object in his hands. With this he approached the rear wall of the jail. There she saw him brace his legs far apart and then swing the object, which was of great size, above his head.
Once, twice, and again he struck the wall of the jail, and the dull sound of the blows came to her distinctly. Following the last there was a rush and a roar and a ragged section of the wall collapsed, exposing the dark interior. Out of this darkness a small figure darted, small as a child beside the giant, and the two raced across the open.
At the same time a great hubbub broke out from the front of the jail, and presently other men plunged through the dark gap in the rear wall and ran after the two fugitives, firing shots. The latter, however, came to two horses near some cottonwoods, swung into the saddle and were at once gone at a racing pace; after which Mrs. Caswell, her ears full of the sound of shots and yells, and her mind full of giants and elves, collapsed.
The sheriff’s narrative was even simpler.
He sat among the three guards of the night shift waiting for the morrow, when his distinguished and formidable prisoner should be taken from his hands and carried to a safer prison. It was well after midnight. Every one was fagged, and they drank coffee steadily to keep on the alert.
Without warning they heard a blow at the rear of the jail and felt a shock that shook the floor beneath them.
They remained motionless, stunned with surprise. Some one said that it must be a blast from the excavation at the rear. The words were not out of his mouth when the blow and shock were repeated. The sheriff then sprang up and tried the door, but it failed to give under his hand and seemed to be securely wedged on the inside. At the same time there was another blow, this time accompanied by a great crashing and rending sound of falling brick, and the voice of Pete Reeve calling: “Good boy! That does it!”