"
"Well I got enough prisoners so I guess he won't be missed.
But you look out how yuh git him outa town. Better wait til
kinda late to-night. I sure would like to see him git a show.
Them two Collier kids never did have a square deal, far as
I've heard.
But be careful, youngster. I want another term off this
county if I can get it. Don't go get me in bad."
"I won't," Bud promised and hurried back to Mrs. Hanson's
house.
That estimable lady was patting butter in a wooden bowl when
Bud went in. She turned and brushed a wisp of gray hair from
her face with her fore arm and sh-shed him into silent
stepping, motioning toward an inner room. Bud tiptoed and
looked, saw Ed Collier fast asleep, swaddled in a blanket,
and grinned his approval.
He made sure that the sleep was genuine, also that the
blanket swaddling was efficient. Moreover, he discovered that
Mrs. Hanson had very prudently attached a thin wire to the
foot of the blanket cocoon, had passed the wire through a
knot hole in a cupboard set into the partition, and to a
sheep bell which she no doubt expected to ring upon
provocation--such as a prisoner struggling to release his
feet from a gray blanket fastened with many large safety
pins.
"He went right to sleep, the minute I'd fed him and tied him
snug," Mrs.
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