"That's what I want to know. What have you been doing here?"

"I ain't been doing nothin', I tell you--except stayin' here, where I
belong," said Pete virtuously.

His eye followed the sheriff's pointing finger, and rested, without a
qualm, on the evidence. The sheriff laid a trembling hand on the coiled
rope. "How'd you get this in, damn you?"

"That rope? Oh, a fellow shoved it through the bars. Wanted me to saw my
way out and go with him, I reckon. I didn't want to argue with him, so I
just took it and didn't let on I wasn't comin'. Wasn't that right? Why,
I thought you'd be pleased! I couldn't have any way of knowin' that you'd
take it like this."

"Shoved it in through a third-story window?"

Pete's ingenuous face took on an injured look. "I reckon maybe he stood
on his tip-toes," he admitted.

"Who was it?"

"I don't know," said Pete truthfully. "He didn't speak and I didn't see
him. Maybe he didn't want me to break jail; but I thought, seein' the saw
and all, he had some such idea in mind."

"Did he bring the keys, too?"

"Oh, no--that was another man entirely. He came a little later. And he
sure wanted me to quit jail; because he said so. But I wouldn't go,