hief?"

"To be sure, since most of the use we have of it is to talk with other
places. Do you want to use it, Frank?" replied the officer.

"No, but I'd like you to do something for me, and I'll explain
afterwards what my reason is," Frank went on.

"Sure I will, my boy. Do almost anything to oblige you. Now, who do
you want me to get at the other end of the wire?" and as he said this
the Chief took down the receiver of the desk phone.

"The penitentiary isn't more than thirty miles away from here, is it?"
asked Frank.

"Whew! what ever would you be wanting to know from there?" the officer
remarked.

"Please call them up and ask whether that man you captured a year ago,
up in the Powell woods, is still doing time there."

"You mean Jules Garrone, do you?" asked Chief Waller.

"That's the man."

Still looking at Frank as though wondering what he could mean by such a
strange request, the other started operations, and after some
skirmishing managed to get in touch with some one who might possibly be
the warder of the State penitentiary.

"Yes, this is Chief Waller of Bloomsbury," Frank heard him say. "How
are you, sir? I would like you to give me a little information
connected with a man I had the pleasure of railroading over your way a
year ago. His name was Jules Garrone, and he was convicted of having
broken into the jewelry establishment of Leffingwell--what's that,
sir?" And Frank, watching closely, could see the lips of the Chief
pursing up, as though he might be tempted to whistle while listening to
something the party at the other end of the wire was telling him.

Then, perhaps a minute or so later, the Chief turned around to Frank,
as he once more hung up the receiver.

"Look here, Frank," he said, exhibiting signs of excitement now, "how
did you ever come to know or suspect that?" he demanded.

"You have told me nothing yet, Chief," Frank remarked, calmly. "But I
judge from the way you acted that you heard some surprising news from
the warden at the penitentiary. What about Jules, sir?"

"He no longer lodges with my friend, the warden," went on Waller. "In
fact, to tell the whole truth, there was a jail delivery week ago,
which has been kept secret up to now. The warden says he was just
sending out the news when I called him. Jules and two other convicts
managed to break away; and while the others have been recaptured, Jules
is still at large!"

CHAPTER X

IN PARTNERSHIP WIT