tinued:

"So Bob hung around the office, reading the papers and smoking. I
put another deputy to work in his place, and after a while, the
first excitement of the case wore off.

"One day when we were alone in the office Bob came over to where I
was sitting. He was looking sort of grim and blue--the same look
he used to get when he'd been up watching for Indians all night or
herd-riding.

"'Tom,' says he, 'it's harder than standing off redskins; it's
harder than lying in the lava desert forty miles from water; but I'm
going to stick it out to the end. You know that's been my style. But
if you'd tip me the smallest kind of a sign--if you'd just say, "Bob
I understand," why, it would make it lots easier.'

"I was surprised. 'I don't know what you mean, Bob,' I said. 'Of
course, you know that I'd do anything under the sun to help you that
I could. But you've got me guessing.'

"'All right, Tom,' was all he said, and he went back to his
newspaper and lit another cigar.

"It was the night before court met when I found out what he meant.
I went to bed that night with that same old, light-headed, nervous
feeling come back upon me. I dropped off to sleep about midnight.
When I awoke I was standing half dressed in one of the court-house
corridors. Bob was holding one of my arms, our family doctor the
other, and Alice was shaking me and half crying. She had sent for
the doctor without my knowing it, and when he came they had found me
out of bed and missing, and had begun a search.

"'Sleep-walking,' said the doctor.

"All of us went back to the house, and the doctor told us some
remarkable stories about the strange things people had done while in
that condition. I was feeling rather chilly after my trip out, and,
as my wife was out of the room at the time, I pulled open the door
of an old wardrobe that stood in the room and dragged out a big
quilt I had seen in there. With it tumbled out the bag of money for
stealing which Bob was to be tried--and convicted--in the morning.

"'How the jumping rattlesnakes did that get there?' I yelled, and
all hands must have seen how surprised I was. Bob knew in a flash.

"'You darned old snoozer,' he said, with the old-time look on his
face, 'I saw you put it there. I watched you open the safe and take
it out, and I followed you. I looked through the window and saw you
hide it in that wardrobe.'

"'Then, you blankety-blank, flop-eared, sheep-headed coyote, what
did you say you to