"Where is it now?" he cried. "I want it. Take me to it at once."

And right there Cecil Winwood saw his mistake.

"I planted it," he lied--for he was compelled to lie because, being
merely tobacco in small packages, it was long since distributed among the
convicts along the customary channels.

"Very well," said Captain Jamie, getting himself in hand. "Lead me to it
at once."

But there was no plant of high explosives to lead him to. The thing did
not exist, had never existed save in the imagination of the wretched
Winwood.

In a large prison like San Quentin there are always hiding-places for
things. And as Cecil Winwood led Captain Jamie he must have done some
rapid thinking.

As Captain Jamie testified before the Board of Directors, and as Winwood
also so testified, on the way to the hiding-place Winwood said that he
and I had planted the powder together.

And I, just released from five days in the dungeons and eighty hours in
the jacket; I, whom even the stupid guards could see was too weak to work
in the loom-room; I, who had been given the day off to recuperate--from
too terrible punishment--I was named as the one who had helped hide the
non-existent thirty-five pounds of high explosive!