Rustlers' roost

Like a brown leaf fluttering in the wind it came through the bars of the cell door. It floated in past a corner of the cot and came to rest on the concrete floor. A heavy brogan slid over it, and “Tex” Rowland, otherwise Number 1733, owner of the brogan, squinted speculatively at the bars.

A trusty had just passed; a wizened-faced, hump-shouldered little old trusty, who had been “Hump” Sherrill before other people’s horses had somehow come into his possession, and through said possession had been given a number in a place where there is little use for the Eighth Commandment.

Hump Sherrill had known Tex Rowland in the cattle country. In fact, he and Tex had worked for the same outfit, although there was a vast difference in their ages. Hump had spent a long time in the Elk Lodge penitentiary; a model old prisoner, who had become a trusty around the warden’s office.

There was little chance that Hump would ever see the wide ranges again. The law had given him twenty-five years. He had sent two perfectly good officers to the hospital at the time of his arrest, and his combined crimes had caused the judge to give him the limit. And Hump was past middle-age at the time of his arrest.

Tex Rowland sat perfectly still for several minutes. He was in no hurry. Time was something he had more of than anything else. Finally he leaned over, lifted his foot a trifle, and secured the brown cigarette paper which he held concealed in his hand. Slowly he went to the bars and peered out before opening his hand enough to see what was on the paper.

The writing had been done with a lead-pencil and was almost illegible. It read--

Tex look out their framin’ yu.

He shut up his hand and squinted wonderingly. He was not at all handsome. His nose was crooked, which gave him sort of an evil look; but there was no evil in his soul. His face was thin, with high cheek-bones, a generous mouth and a strong chin. His upper front teeth were decidedly of the “buck-tooth” variety, which did not add to his facial beauty. But his eyes were level and gray, set in a net-work of grin-wrinkles.

Tex was above medium height, with sloping shoulders and long, muscular arms. He looked as lean as a greyhound and tipped the scales at about a hundred and sixty pounds. Tex had also been a model prisoner since his arrival, about two months previous; but the guards did not put their stamp of approval upon a prisoner until said prisoner had been there long enough to realize what it all meant.

Just now Tex was trying to puzzle out the meaning of Hump Sherrill’s message, as he masticated the bit of paper and swallowed it. The prison was still a trifle upset over an attempted “break,” in which a prisoner had been shot and killed by a guard.

Tex had taken no part in the affair. In fact, he did not know anything about it until it was all over. The authorities had made an attempt to find out who was the instigator of the thing, but, from what the prisoners had been able to find out, they were unable to fix the blame.

“What are they tryin’ to frame me for?” wondered Tex. “I ain’t done nothin’. They framed me into this place, and that ought to be enough to do to one ordinary cow-puncher.”

He leaned back on his stool and tried to figure out what he had done. He did not like Jim McHague, the head warden. It was not a dislike born from anything that McHague had done, but an instinctive dislike. He did not like the perpetual sneer on McHague’s hard features; the aggressive swing of his beefy body. It had seemed to Tex that McHague’s every action spoke plainer than words--

“I am your master.”