The jail was a small affair, being nothing more than the loft over a carpenter shop.  The jailer was a round-faced man named Booth, who filled in his spare time by doing odd jobs of carpentering in the shop downstairs.  We found him hard at work glueing some doors together.  I knew him tolerably well, and he evinced considerable surprise at seeing me in custody.

“What, Roger; arrested!  What for?”

“That’s what I would like to know,” I returned.

In a few words Parsons told him what was to be done, and Booth led the way upstairs.

" ’Tain’t a very secure place,” he returned.  “Reckon I’ll have to nail down some of the windows unless you’ll give me your word not to run away.”

“I’ll promise nothing,” was my reply.  “I’m being treated unfairly, and I shall do as I think best.”

“Then I’ll fasten everything as tight as a drum,” returned Booth.

Going below, he secured a hammer and some nails, with which he secured the windows and the scuttle on the roof.

“Reckon it’s tight enough now,” he said.  “Just wait, Parsons, till I get him a bucket of water.”

This was done, and then the two men left me, closing and locking the door of the enclosed staircase behind them.

The loft was empty, saving a nail keg that stood in one corner of the floor.  Pulling this out, I sat down to think matters over.

Try my best I could not imagine what charge Mr. Aaron Woodward had brought against me.  Yet such had been his earnestness that for the nonce everything else was driven from my mind.

The sounds of talking below interrupted my meditations.  I recognized Kate’s voice, and the next moment my sister stood beside me.

“Oh, Roger!” was all she could say, and catching me by the arm she burst into tears.

“Don’t take it so hard, Kate,” I said.  “Make sure it will all come out right in the end.”

“But to be arrested like—­ like a thief!  Oh, Roger, it is dreadful!”

“Never mind.  I have done no wrong, and I’m not afraid of the result.  Have they heard anything of John Stumpy yet?”

“Dick Blair says not.  Mr. Parsons and the rest are after him, but he seems to have disappeared for good—­ and Mrs. Canby’s money with him.”

“Have you heard from her yet?”

“No; but I’ve written her a letter and just posted it to Norfolk.”

“She won’t get it till day after to-morrow.”

“What will she say?  Oh, Roger, do you think—­”

“No, I don’t.  The widow always trusted me, and I know she’ll take my word now.  She is not so narrow-minded as the very folks who look down on her.”

“But it is awful!  Over two hundred dollars!  We can never make it up.  We’ve only got twenty-eight!”

“We can’t exactly be called upon to make it up—­” I began.

“But we’ll want to,” put in Kate, hastily.

“I’d feel better if we did.  The widow has always been so kind to us.”