In the morning it was old
John Runnels himself who brought me my cell breakfast, and he did it to
spare me the shame of being served by the police-station turnkey. Past
that, he sat on the edge of the iron cot and talked to me while I tried
to eat.

"They was aimin' to telegraph the sheriff and have you railroaded slap
up to the county seat las' night, but I told 'em nary," he confided.
"I wasn't allowin' to have 'em jerk you out of your home town before
you'd had a chance to pick a lawyer and talk to your friends; no
sir-ee, I wasn't."

"I guess I haven't any friends any more," I was still bitter enough to
say. And then: "Tell me, if you can, Uncle John, just what the charge
against me is."

"I reckon you know a heap better'n I do, Bertie," was his sober
rejoinder, "but I can tell you what I heard. They say you've been
takin' the bank's money to put into a gold mine somewheres out yonder
in the Rocky Mountains."

"Who swore out the warrant for my arrest?"

"Ab Withers."

Abner Withers, town miser, note-shaver and skinflint, was the one man
on the board of directors of the bank whom I had always most cordially
detested. Back in my childhood, before my father had got upon his
feet, Withers had planned to foreclose a mortgage on the home farm,
making the hampering of my father so that he could not pay the debt a
part of the plan. More than once I had half suspected that he was in
with Geddis on the mining deal, but I had no proof of this.

"You say they were getting ready to railroad me out of town last night:
I suppose they will do it to-day, won't they?"

"Not if I can help it, Bertie. I'm goin' to try to hold you here till
you've had time to kind of straighten yourself around and ketch up with
the procession. I don't know what in Sam Hill you wanted to go and
bu'st yourself up for, this way, but I'm owin' it to Amos Weyburn dead
to help his boy get some sort of a fair show for his white alley. You
ask me anything in reason, and I'll do it."

I considered the most necessary requirements hastily. My mother and
sister were absent on a visit to a distant relative in the far-away
Saskatchewan wheat country, and I thanked God for that. It was
altogether unlikely that they would see any of the home newspapers, for
some time, at least, and any anxiety on that score might be dismissed,
or at all events postponed. The most pressing need was for a lawyer,
and since lawyers do not serve without fees, I was g