he had plenty to eat.
"Just forget your troubles and pitch into that food, Jake," said
Eleanor, kindly. "You'll be able to talk much better on a full stomach,
you know."
And whenever Jake seemed inclined to stop eating, and to break out with
new evidences of his alarm, they forced more food on him. At last,
however, he was so full that he could eat no more, and he rose
nervously.
"I've got to be going now," he said. "Honest, I'm afraid to stay here
any longer--"
"Oh, but you came here to tell us something, you know," said Eleanor.
"Surely you're not going away without doing that, are you?"
"I did think you'd keep your word, Jake," said Bessie, reproachfully.
"I can't! I've got to go, I tell you!" Jake broke out. His fright was
not assumed; it was plain that he was terrified. "If they was after you,
I guess you'd know--here, I'm going--"
"Not so fast, young man!" said a stern voice in the door of the tent,
and Jake almost collapsed as Bill Trenwith, a policeman in uniform at
his back, came in. "There you are, Jones, there's your man. Arrest him
on a charge of having no means of support--that will hold him for the
present. We can decide later on what we want to send him to prison for.
He's done enough to get him twenty years."
Jake gave a shriek of terror and fell to the ground, grovelling at the
lawyer's feet.
"Oh, don't arrest me!" he begged. "I'll tell you everything I know.
Don't arrest me!"
"It's the only way to hold you," said Trenwith. "You've got to learn to
be more afraid of us than of Holmes."
CHAPTER X
JAKE HOOVER'S CAPTURE
"You're a fine lot," declared Jake, something about Trenwith's manner
seeming to steady him so that he could talk intelligibly. "You tell me I
won't get into any trouble if I come here, and then I find it's a trap!"
"No one told you anything of the sort, my lad," said Trenwith, sharply.
"You promised to go to Mr. Jamieson and tell him what you knew. No one
made you any promises at all, except that you were told you wouldn't
have any reason to regret doing it."
Jake looked at Eleanor balefully.
"She's too sharp, that's what she is," he complained bitterly. "I might
ha' known she was playing a trick on me--gettin' me to stay here and eat
a fine supper. I suppose she went and sent word to you while I was doing
it."
"Of course I did, Jake," said Eleanor quietly. "I telephoned to Mr.
Trenwith even before you had your supper because I knew that if I
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