Johnson was stupefied; he had not known until that afternoon that he was to be taken away so soon, and his wife had not known; she was to bring the children on the next day to see him. For an hour Johnson had been on the point of saying something; his lips would move, and he would lift his eyes to Danner, but he seemed afraid to speak.
Meanwhile, Danner was making his entries and looking over his commitment papers. The Kid had begun to talk with Deacon Samuel. He and the Deacon had been working together and had been arrested for the same crime, but Danner had separated them in the jail so they could not converse, and they were together now for the first time since their arrest. The Kid bent his body forward and leaned out of the line to look down at the Deacon. The old thief was smooth-faced and wore gold-rimmed spectacles. When the Kid caught his mild, solemn eye, looking out benignly from behind his glasses, a smile spread over his face, and he said:
"Well, old pard, we’re fixed for the next five-spot."
"How was it pulled off for you?" asked the Kid.
"Oh, it was the same old thing over again," replied the Deacon. "They had us lagged before the trial, but they had to make a flash of some kind, so they put up twelve suckers and then they put a rapper up, and that settled it."
"There was nothing to it," said the Kid, in a tone that acquiesced in all the Deacon had been saying. "It was that way with me. They were out chewing the rag for five minutes, then they comes in, hands the stiff to the old bloke in the rock, and he hands it to quills, who reads it to me, and then the old punk-hunter made his spiel."
"Did he?" said the Deacon, interested. "He didn’t to me; he just slung it at me in a lump."
"Naw," said the Deacon, "the poke was cold and the thimble was a phoney."
"Je’s," exclaimed the Kid. "I never got wise! Well, then there was no chance for him to spring us."
"It’s tough to fall for a dead one," mused the Kid.
The other prisoners had been respectfully silent while these two thieves compared notes, but their conversation annoyed Danner. He could not understand what they were saying, and this angered him, and besides, their talking interfered with his entries, for he was excessively stupid.