suppose you
intend for your young _protege_, up to him myself."

"And thee'll speak gently with him?"

"Oh, yes. I'll talk to him like a Dutch uncle."

Thus it happened that when the door at the end of the jail corridor was
swung heavily back on its massive hinges, and Rod Blake, who had been
gazing from one of the corridor windows, looked eagerly toward it, he was
confronted by the stern face of the sheriff instead of the placidly sweet
one of the old lady, whom he expected to see.

"What are you doing out here, sir? Get back into your cell at once!"
commanded the sheriff in an angry tone.

"Oh, sir! please don't lock me in there again. It doesn't seem as though I
could stand it," pleaded Rod.

The sheriff looked searchingly at the lad. His face was certainly a very
honest one, and to one old lady at least he had been kindly considerate.
At the thought of the ready help extended by this lad to his own
dearly-loved mother in the time of her perplexity, the harsh words that
the sheriff had meditated faded from his mind, and instead of uttering
them he said:

"Very well; I will leave your cell-door open, if you will give me your
promise not to attempt an escape."

And Rod promised.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

LIGHT DAWNS UPON THE SITUATION.

On leaving Rodman the sheriff was decidedly perplexed. His prisoner's
honest face had made a decided impression upon him, and he had great
confidence in his mother's judgment concerning such cases, though he was
careful never to admit this to her. At the same time all the circumstances
pointed so strongly to the lad's guilt that, as he reviewed them there
hardly seemed a doubt of it. It is a peculiarity of sheriffs and jailers
to regard a prisoner as guilty until he has been proved innocent.
Nevertheless this sheriff gave his mother permission to visit Rod as
often as she liked; only charging her to lock the corridor-door both upon
entering and leaving the jail. So the dear old lady again toiled up the
steep stairway, this time laden with books and papers. She found the tired
lad stretched on his hard pallet and fast asleep, so she tiptoed softly
away again without wakening him.

While the young prisoner was thus forgetting his troubles, and storing up
new strength with which to meet them, the sheriff was scouring the village
and its vicinity for traces of any stranger who might be the train robber.
But strangers were scarce in Center that day and the only one he could