tle, in that mysterious way rumour has, growing more detailed, surer, more complete.
Jimmy Carroll the little cell-mate was dead. He had been shot.
This was all for a time; then by glance, by shrug, by swiftly stolen word, 9009 was directed to “Shorty” Hayes, the shock-headed safe-cracker who had laughed at him as he had joined the break. And one Sunday he cornered him in the yard and drew the whole story from him.
This convict was under a fifty years’ sentence. He had lost his copper long since. Now he was to get it back from the Governor of the State. In some subtle subterranean way he had got hold of the facts of Jimmy Carroll’s death, and the knowledge was worth to him his copper.
He crowed harshly over this, long, before he told 9009 anything. And while telling, every sentence or two he broke from the telling and croaked again his triumph. “They’re a-goin’ to get me me copper back from the Governor,” he would croak; “thirteen years’ copper they’re a-goin’ to give me back—fer what I know. Fer
