of 'dignified silence.' Kelly tried to work one of the
'fellow convict' rackets on me, but I made no confessions. I soon became
a martyr, in the eyes of the women of the town. You boys got to talking
of backing up a suit for false imprisonment; election was coming on and
the sheriff and county judge were getting uneasy, and the district
attorney was awfully unhappy, so they let me out.

"Nixon, the sheriff, pumped me slyly, to see what effect my imprisonment
would have on future operations, and I told him I didn't propose to lose
any time over it, and agreed to drop the matter for a little nest-egg
equal to the highest pay received by any engineer on the road. Pat
Dailey was the worst hog for overtime, and I selected his pay as the
standard and took big money,--from the campaign funds. I wasn't afraid
of re-arrest;--I had 'em for bribery.

"Whilst I was in hock, I had cold chills every time I heard the 313's
whistle, for fear they would wash her out and find the dust; but she
gave up nothing.

"When I reported for work, the old scrap was out on construction and
they were disposed to put me on another mill, pulling varnished cars,
but I told the old man I was under the weather and 'crummy,' and that
put him in a good humor; and I was sent out to a desolate siding, and
once again took charge, of the steam 'fence,' for the robber of the
Black Prince mine.

"On Sunday, by a little maneuvering, I managed to get the crew to go off
on a trout-fishing expedition, and under pretext of grinding-in her
chronically leaky throttle, I took off her dome-cover and looked in;
there was nothing in sight.

"I was afraid that the cooking of two months or more had destroyed the
canvas bags; then again the heavy deposit of scale might have cemented
the bags to the flues. In either case, rough handling would send the
dust to the bottom of the boiler, making it difficult if not impossible
to recover; and worse yet, manifest itself sometime and give me dead
away.

"I concluded to go at the matter right, and after two hours of hard
work, managed to get the upright throttle-pipe out of the dome. I drew
her water down below the flue-line, and though it was tolerably warm, I
got in.

"Both of my surmises were partially correct; the canvas was rotted, in a
measure, and the bags were fastened to the flues. The dust had been put
up in buckskin bags, first, and these had been put into shot-sacks; the
buckskin was shrunken but intact. I took a