dwich, "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 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. "As a writer I'm a first-rate cow