A big
swashbuckler of a man with a hard face, hard blue eyes with quizzical
wrinkles around them. They seemed wrinkles of good humour till you
looked closer.
"--s a damn lie ... you 'en Jimmy hev bin a-gamblin' all night,"
interjected the sheriff, in angry disgust.
* * * * *
They marched us upstairs. The whole top floor, was given over to a huge
iron cage which had been built in before the putting on of the roof. A
narrow free space--a sort of corridor, ran all around it, on the
outside.
Eager and interested, the prisoners already in the cage pushed their
faces against the bars to look at us. But at the sheriff's word of
command they went into their cells, the latter built in a row within the
cage itself, and obediently slammed their doors shut while a long iron
bar was shot across the whole length, from without ... then the big door
of the cage was opened, and we were thrust in. The bar was drawn back,
liberating the others, then, from their cells.
The posse left. Our fellow prisoners crowded about us, asking us
questions ... what had we done?... and how had we been caught?... and
what part of the country were we from?... etc. etc....
From the North ... yes, Yankee ... well, when a fellow was both a Yank
and a tramp he was given a short shrift in the South.
They talked much about themselves .
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