Then it will be easy to dig out the
mortar between the bricks, in the jail wall. Once out, we can make for
the river bottoms, and, by wading in the water, even their bloodhounds
can't track us."
"And once I get over into Indian Territory or Arkansas, you'll never see
me in Texas again," I muttered.
"How'll we conceal where we've been sawing?" Bud asked.
"By plugging up the grooves with corn bread blackened with soot that we
can make by holding the wick of this smoky lamp against the
cage-ceiling."
"And how'll we keep folks from hearing the sawing?"
"By dancing and singing while Baykins here" (alluding to a "pore white"
fiddler who had almost killed a man at a dance) "while Baykins here
plays 'whip the devil.'"
The very next day we began dancing and singing and taking turns at the
chuckhole bar.
"Whip the Devil" is an interminable tune like the one about the "old
woman chasing her son round the room with a broom."...
The mistake was, that in our eagerness we "whipped the devil" too long
at a time. Naturally, the jailer grew suspicious of such sudden and
prolonged hilarity. But even at that it took almost a week for them to
catch on. We knew it was all up when, one morning at breakfast, the
sheriff came in with the jailer.
"Boys, all back into your cells!" he growled.
The long bar was thrown over our closed doors.
The sheriff stooped down and inspected the chuck-hole.
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