sed curiosity. There were two rooms, and the walls were vulnerable
to windy gusts through cracks between rotting logs. The windows were
glassless and an insufficient heat came from a fire which burned feebly
on an open and smoke-blackened hearth. My two jailers rose constantly to
fall back shivering on the jug of moonshine. There was no sign of beds
or furniture of any sort. Until we arrived there the house had been
abandoned.

Dawson permitted me to walk to the door and look out. The morning was
gray and chilling. A slight rise in temperature had brought cold
moisture and under a raw sky the hills stretched up all about us in
reeking veils of foggy desolation. I saw only rattling weed stalks
feeding on the decayed skeleton of what had been a fence-line before the
days of abandonment, and a basin choked with volunteer timber, around
which the hill-sides rose like a spite-fence, cutting off whatever lay
beyond. A small front porch had graced the cabin in earlier times, but
of that there now remained only one upright, and a few broken planks. I
tried to locate the stable, but there was no evidence of any outhouse
except some charred and over-grown timbers. Palpably the mountaineers
had not kept their horses with them. If I escaped I must do so on foot.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE OFFER OF PAROLE.

Perhaps the disappointment of my cursory reconnoiter showed itself in my
expression. Curt Dawson, who stood with his arms folded and his loose
length draped against the door-jamb, grinned at my dolorous face.

"Nice place, ain't hit--fer a murder?"

"That's about all," I responded affably enough. I had discovered that I
was gaining nothing by a sullen attitude and I am afraid that I was even
yielding to a cheap desire to impress these desperadoes with my
indifference.

"By the way," I added, "what's the delay about? Why don't you finish up
your job and get to a more comfortable place?"

Again he grinned. "Say, stranger," he questioned, "ain't we treatin' yer
pretty well? Was you ever in any other jail where yer got better
handled? I've done laid myself out ter make yer visit memorable."

"It will be," I assured him, "provided I live long enough to remember
it--and--" I reached out my manacled hand for some of his "natural leaf"
and loaded the cob pipe with which I had been presented, "whenever I
pass through Frankfort in after years, Dawson, I promise to drop into
the penitentiary and pay you a visit."

"No Dawson ai