er why I feel so much
sympathy for a fellow of this kind?"

They were at the broken bridge, now, with the wreck of the automobile
lying in the creek.

"Mosher," said the deputy sternly, "Officer Simmons suspects that
you believed we'd be after you, and that you tore up some of the
planks from this crazy old bridge, so that our car would be wrecked.
Did you do that?"

"Oh, I suppose I must have," replied Tag, with the air of one
who feels it fruitless to deny what peace officers were prepared
to charge against one of his bad reputation.

"Then you admit damaging the bridge?" asked Valden.

"I admit nothing of the kind," Tag retorted.

"Who ripped the boards up?"

"I don't know."

"We'll prove it against you," declared Valden positively.

"Oh, I s'pose you will," grumbled Tag. "It's easy to prove anything
against old Bill Mosher's son. My dad's where he can't help me."

"Are you going to play the baby act?" asked the deputy,
half-sneeringly.

"Wait until I've had a week of good eating and sound sleeping,
and then see if you can find anything babyish about me," snapped
the prisoner.

Dick Prescott watched the pair, feeling a rising resentment against
the deputy. Yet Valden was only resorting to tricks as old as
the police themselves---the taunting of a prisoner into talking
too much and thereby betraying his guilt.

"Pardon me, Tag," Dick now interposed, "but it's a principle of
law that a prisoner doesn't have to talk unless he wants to.
I don't believe, if I were you, I'd say anything just now."

"I'm not going to say anything more," Tag retorted moodily, yet
with a flash of somewhat sullen gratitude to Prescott.

"Humph! You'd better talk, and get all you know out of your system,"
advised Deputy Valden contemptuously. "And the first thing you'd
better own up to is pulling the missing planks up from this crazy
old bridge."

Tag snorted, yet had no word to say. Instead, as best he could
with his hands in the steel bracelets, he helped himself to a
seat on the ground his back against a tree. Either he was extremely
weary, or he was pretending cleverly.

"Come! I guess you can talk better standing up," admonished Deputy
Valden, seizing Tag by the coat collar and dragging him to his
feet. Mosher accepted the implied order in sullen silence.

"Is it necessary, Mr. Valden, to torment the prisoner?" asked
Dick quietly.

"The way I handle a prisoner is my business," replied Valden rather
cris