ll 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 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 long
breath. The man was accustoming himself to the weapon which had come
into his possession, making sure of it. Now he again stood motionl