text: [Themes: Western, prison]
  
  > look around
  The small jail cell is brick on three sides, metal bars on the other, with a tightly locked gate. A small window is set into the brickwork above your head. Through the jail bars you can see the sheriff's office.
  
  A broken stool lies on the floor.
  
  Muddy leans against the wall tapping a harmonica on his arm.
  
  In the corner of the cell, a disheveled man in a black suit is stretched out on a crude wooden bench and is snoring loudly, oblivious to your presence.
  
  You can also see an empty can (in which is a spoon) here.
  
  A dented food bowl sits on the office floor, only a few feet from the jail bars.
  
  > pull the vine
  You yank on the wiry vine and it yanks back. It's too tough to break off. From outside the window, you hear the bulk of the plant rustling as it swings back and forth.
  
  Halfway between the door to the outside and your jail cell, the sheriff's invention percolates.
  
  The deputy pokes his head back in the office and remarks, "I've about had enough of you characters. You can stew in your own juices here. I got important things to do over yonder in the saloon. But I reckon I would be dairy licked to leave you jokers alone."
  
  The deputy grabs a dinner bell from the hook where it hangs next to the office door, and he rings the bell slowly a few times. Nothing happens. He rings it again. Minutes go by and the deputy waits impatiently. Finally, a fat bloodhound waddles leisurely through the doorway, tempted by the dinner bell.
  
  The deputy reaches into his pocket and retrieves a scrap of beef jerky. He pitches it into the dog's bowl, and the bloodhound gobbles it down. The deputy leads his mangy old dog towards the office's strange-looking steam boiler and ties him to it with a leash.
  
  "This here's Flash, my hunting dog. I got to warn you that he can be vicious when he gets riled up, so don't cross him." Flash slowly slumps down next to the boiler, enjoying the heat. His heavy eyes close, and drool drips from his toothless mouth.
  
  "Flash here's apt to rip your throat out if you so much as look at him funny, but I got him hooked up here to the sheriff's fancy steam contraption." The deputy narrows his eyes distrustfully. "If you boys were so stupid as to make for the jailhouse door, 'ol Flash would yank that lever and set off the steam whistle on the roof. The sheriff installed it special for me, so as I can come when he wants me. I can hear that halfway across town, and if'n I do hear it, then you'll have to deal with me *and* Flash." The deputy gives Flash one last pat on the head, swigs the whiskey one more time, and departs for the saloon.
  
  > give the meat to Flash
  Flash don't seem interested.
  
  "That worked out well," says Muddy proudly.
  
  "For you maybe," you reply. "But I near to lost my lunch what with that stench."
  
  To which Muddy counters, "Ain't much worse than your feet, I reckon."
  
  > throw meat
  Ditched.
  
  > put the tobacco on the meat
  You need to be holding the tobacco before you can put it on top of something else.
  
  Not far from your jail cell, the metal contraption puffs some steam into the office.
  
  > take the meat
  Yuck. You are holding the rancid meat.
  
  Fetched.
  
  Halfway between the door to the outside and your jail cell, the furnace creaks.
  
  > dig the wall with the spoon
  I only twigged your meaning as far as hankering to dig the walls.
  
  > give the meat to muddy
  Muddy reaches eagerly, but stops just short of taking it. You've never seen Muddy turn down food before, so you're not sure how this experiment will work out. He sniffs it tentatively, hoping that the smell will be better than the sight. His eyes cross and he staggers backward, fanning the air and loosening his collar. "I think I'll pass," he says weakly."
  
  > dig the wall
  That's crazy talk.
  
  Muddy scratches his leg.
  
  > stand on the stool
  You teeter momentarily on the stool and then topple face first into the floor, like a blacksmith's hammer striking the anvil. This is getting old real fast now.
  
  > look at what you're carrying with you
  You're carrying a hunk of meat, a spur, a tin, a pamphlet, your pocketwatch, and a scrap of paper. You are wearing your hat, pants, overcoat, left boot, and right boot.
  
  Flash shifts his tail by an inch.
  
  > examine the overcoat
  The gray riding coat reminds you of past adventures with Muddy Charlie: the speckled holes on the side where you caught a shotgun blast when a bank transaction done gone awry, the hole on the other side from the time you and Muddy got to fooling around with a bow, an arrow, and a bottle of whiskey, and the charred, frayed edges of the coat from the time you and Muddy were almost burnt as witches. Each flaw in the garment reminds you of one of Muddy's plans, each of which sounded so reasonable at the time....
  
  Flash sneezes, but somehow he manages to do it slowly.
  
  > examine the stool
  A small stool, with legs a couple of feet long. It's three-legged by design, but two-legged in practice, hence its inability to stand upright. There's an empty socket where the third leg should be. All of the paint has been worn off the seat by your illustrious predecessors who inhabited this cell. Those same occupants carved every square inch of the stool's seat with their initials (and the initials look intriguing!)  A small bronze plate has been nailed to the bottom of the stool.
  
  A yellow-fringed surrey trots past the sheriff's office.
  
  > look at the socket
  Once upon a time, a stool leg about two feet long must have occupied the now empty hole in the stool seat. Without that leg, the stool isn't much good.
  
  > examine bars
  You look across the street at the saloon. Oh wait, did you mean the prison bars? Yeah, probably. Anyhow, the bars to your cell reach from floor to ceiling and are made of matte black metal. All except one, which is sort of gray in color and as short as a table leg. They are a bit under an inch thick, and they are reinforced by three tiers of horizontal bars. The gate to your cell is framed in the same black metal and inset into this meshwork of bars.
  
  > examine the gray bar
  The gray bar is just a shade lighter than the surrounding jail bars. You notice that the gray bar is held to the ceiling by a screw the size of a railroad spike.
  
  > look at the screw
  A large, rusty screw. It's holding a gray bar in place.
  
  > unscrew it
  Nothing obvious happens.
  
  > unscrew it with the spoon
  I only twigged your meaning as far as hankering to unscrew the screw.
  
  > pull the screw
  The screw is too high for you to reach.
  
  Pastor Pete stares wide-eyed at the ceiling for a moment and then falls back asleep.
  
  Nothing obvious happens.
  
  Flash has died. Wait. Sorry. He's just really immobile.
  
  > unscrew the gray bar
  Nothing obvious happens.
  
  Flash has a nightmare and growls quietly before returning to a deep slumber.
  
  > hold the stool
  Muddy ain't having none of your balderdash.
  
  Muddy drums his fingers against the wall.
  
  > stand on the stool
  You ain't gonna get onto the stool unless it stands solidly on three good legs.
  
  Not far from your jail cell, the metal contraption gurgles and bubbles quietly.
  
  > remove the boot
  Which all do you mean, the left boot, or the right boot?
  
  > Left
  Oh, you really don't want to do that. Not indoors at least. Are you sure?
  
  > No
  Muddy murmurs a prayer of thanks to whatever he sometimes prays to when he's running away from something bigger or badder than he is.
  
  Halfway between the door to the outside and your jail cell, the furnace hisses, venting some steam.
  
  > examine the hat
  An unusually capacious, wide-brimmed hat to protect you from the sun.
  
  Muddy counts the number of stars he can see out the window, divides by the number of bars in the jail cell, and takes the natural logarithm. "Yup," he says, "that's what I thought."
  
  > remove the hat
  You take off the hat.
  
  > look in the hat
  There ain't no reply.
  
  Flash starts to rub a flea but then decides it to be too much work.
  
  Enter saved game to store: Ok.
  
  Ten gallons of nothing. You sure could shove a lot of loot in there, you reckon.
  
  Flash snores loudly, his jowls fluttering with each breath.
  
  > Chew tobacco
  It tastes pretty horrid.
  
  > remove the right boot
  There are people within a thousand yards. Are you sure?
  
  > Y.
  You rock back and forth on the floor, locked in a death struggle with your foot. Beads of sweat form on your head, as you struggle to twist and pull the boot off. With a sudden sucking pop, the boot relents and you tumble backwards.
  
  Muddy's eyes water as he complains, "Ain't you got no sense of smell in that head of yours?"
  
  To which you reply, "Not after I been downwind of you around feeding time, nope. This ain't nothing next to what you can do with a can of beans!"
  
  Flash wakes with a start and sneezes loudly. The fur on his back bristles, and he opens his eyes to stare in horror at your feet. He backs away, towards the front door. The leash pulls taut. He seems caught in the balance between an urge to run away from your stinky foot and his own laziness, which holds him to the spot.
  
  > remove the left boot
  In some states that would be a felony. Are you sure?
  
  > Yes
  You rock back and forth on the floor, locked in a death struggle with your foot. Beads of sweat form on your head, as you struggle to twist and pull the boot off. With a sudden sucking pop, the boot relents and you tumble backwards.
  
  Muddy's eyes water as he complains, "Not again! My poor nose!"
  
  One foot was bad enough, but two is more than the old dog can handle. Trying not to sniff the air, Flash turns tail and breaks for the door, straining against his leash, which is tied to the steam pipe lever. The lever swings towards the door, and from the roof you hear the ear-splitting drone of a railway steam whistle.
  
  You agree with Muddy that the deputy is not likely to be in a good mood when he arrives, so you put your boots back on.
  
  > put the gray bar in the socket
  You flip the stool over and wiggle the hollow gray tube into the empty socket. It fits perfectly and remains in place when you let go of the bar, but you think you could yank the gray bar out again if you needed it. You now have a stool with three even legs: two wood, one metal.
  
  The Deputy slams through the swinging doors to the office, lurching to the side as he struggles to put his other leg into his pants. He is bare-chested and empty-handed, aside from a nearly drained bottle of whiskey.
  
  The deputy thunders, "What the cluster-chucking blazes is the matter here?" The deputy surveys the office quickly and then rattles the gate to make sure it is still locked. In his drunken rage, he doesn't notice the missing metal bar.
  
  Satisfied that you haven't escaped, he pushes the lever back to the middle position and warns, "I don't know what you were up to what made old Flash trigger-happy, but don't let it happen again."
  
  "Dumb dog," he mumbles, "I was doing important business." The deputy shakes his head in frustration and sets off again towards the door.
  
  > look at the stool
  A small stool, with legs a couple of feet long. One of its three legs is a piece of gray jail bar, but it seems relatively solid. All of the paint has been worn off the seat by your illustrious predecessors who inhabited this cell. Those same occupants carved every square inch of the stool's seat with their initials (and the initials look intriguing!)  A small bronze plate has been nailed to the bottom of the stool.
  
  Pastor Pete pedals the air with his feet, while making sounds like a ringing bell.
  
  > sit on the stool
  Muddy holds it steady as you climb up. Your head is now even with the top of the window.
  
  Pastor Pete shakes and twists spasmodically.
  
  > stand on stool
  You are already high enough up.
  
  Muddy murmurs to himself about not being able to recall a limerick he once heard that had something to do with cowboys and farmers.
  
  > look at the window
  Pretty far up on the wall, as wide as your shoulders, and secured by four vertical iron rods as thick as your thumb. And you have thick thumbs. The green tip of a vine pokes in from outside and lies on the narrow window sill.
  
  The Deputy slams through the swinging doors to the office, lurching to the side as he struggles to put his other leg into his pants. He is bare-chested and empty-handed, aside from a nearly drained bottle of whiskey.
  
  The deputy thunders, "What the cow-poking sheep-sheering bear-baiting turkey-trotting blazes is the matter here?" The deputy surveys the office quickly and then rattles the gate to make sure it is still locked.
  
  Satisfied that you haven't escaped, he pushes the lever back to the middle position and warns, "I don't know what you were up to what made old Flash trigger-happy, but don't let it happen again."
  
  "Dumb dog," he mumbles, "I was doing important business." The deputy waves his fist at you and sets off again towards the door.
  
  > look at the gate
  (the gate)
  A metal gate stands between you and freedom. The gate is set into the metal bars that surround your cell, and its hinges must be internal. The gate has a massive padlock that clicked definitively behind you when you were thrown into the cell. You've seen banks with poorer locks. At least this is a quality institution.
  
  Flash basks in the glow of the boiler.
  
  > look at the grey bar
  The gray bar is just a shade lighter than the surrounding jail bars. You notice that the gray bar is held to the ceiling by a screw the size of a railroad spike.
  
  Muddy murmurs to himself about not being able to recall a limerick he once heard that had something to do with cowboys and farmers.
  
  > Turn screw
  Nothing obvious happens.
  
  > tie the vine to screw
  You would achieve nothing by this.
  
  Flash nuzzles up to the boiler.
  
  > give the tin to PASTOR
  Suddenly, Pastor Pete leaps up and rants, "The SHIP of INTEGRITY floats merrily on the sea of justice, and we on the shore are lapped by the waves of righteousness, drizzled upon by the REIGN of PROPRIETY, and spat upon by the unyielding sense of honor and self-worth that could be extracted from fried food if one had the time and inclination to do so. We are doused by a fire brigade of good works, immersed in the RIVER of NOBLE DEEDS, pulled under by the CURRENT of good will, and drowned within an inch of our very lives in the deep, dark well of DUTY. Thus, I say, swimming is something that should be learned at an early age, and then avoided". He then collapses on the bench again and falls fast asleep.
  
  Muddy leans against the wall and sighs.
  
  > give the tin to muddy
  Muddy glances at the tin and says, "I ain't got no idea what I'd do with a tin. No thanks."
  
  Muddy paces back and forth impatiently.
  
  > remove the screw
  (first taking the screw)
  The screw is too high for you to reach.
  
  Muddy hums "Camptown Races", singing the "Doo-Dars" off key. The effect is annoying.
  
  > stand on the stool
  You ain't gonna get onto the stool unless it stands solidly on three good legs.
  
  Pastor Pete shakes and twists spasmodically.
  
  > eat the tobacco
  (first taking the tobacco)
  You take a pinch of tobacco.
  
  "Glmph."
  
  "You didn't just swallow that chaw, did you?" asks Muddy incredulously.
  
  "I reckon I done just that -- and it didn't go down pretty."
  
  You galoot. You're supposed to chew it. Hain't I learned you nothing?"
  
  > get on muddy
  (first sticking some in your maw)
  You wonder if tobacco is really good for you, like the doctors say.
  
  Muddy glances over at you, and seems about to speak, but then walks away again.
  
  That ain't something what you can loiter on.
  
  A fly buzzes past your ear and lands on the ceiling.
  
  > spit the tobacco at the bowl
  The tobacco hits the food bowl, but drops off.
  
  Pastor Pete somersaults from the bench into the center of the jail cell. He chants, "The mystery of unfounded knowledge knows not the day of its own destruction, nor whence it came. It is a PUZZLE wrapped in an enigma, boarded up in a box lined with straw, and surrounded by another metal box with RIVETS, and finally an even larger metal box that is encased in concrete and thrown into the ocean, where it is swallowed by a whale, which is in turn swallowed by a sea turtle of unusual proportions. That SEA TURTLE is subsequently swallowed by a still larger sea turtle, and from there on, it's turtles all the way down!"
  
  Pastor Pete collapses onto the bench and resumes his previous position as if nothing had happened.
  
  > Spit tobacco at Pete
  Suddenly, Pastor Pete leaps up and rants, "There shall be an ACCOUNTING and it shall come swiftly, and with little notice, most likely in a four hour time slot in the morning, but perhaps in the late afternoon or evening if they're running late. THE WAGES OF SIN shall be entered into the ledgers, in duplicate, after first deducting the withholdables of sin and carrying over any offsetting credits from previous GOOD WORKS, and taking into consideration the INFLATION of EVIL, the DEVALUATION of MORALS and the exchange rate with PAGAN BELIEFS". He then collapses on the bench again and falls fast asleep.
  
  Flash half opens one eye and looks at you and Muddy.
  
  > Spit tobacco at Flash
  (first chewing some tobacco)
  The stomach-churning mass of glistening tobacco pulp splashes on the floor, just in front of Flash. His nose twitches, as his finely honed bloodhound sense of smell detects tobacco ball. Your stomach churns as he stretches lazily forward and laps it up, swallowing it in one gulp before falling asleep again.
  
  > Twist grey bar
  Nothing obvious happens.
  
  > spit the tobacco at the screw
  (first chewing some tobacco)
  You're not keen to spit at anything in the jail cell with you. A man don't spit where he lives (excepting maybe on the floor, of course).
  
  Just to the side of the desk, the boiler gurgles and bubbles quietly.
  
  > Spit tobacco at lever
  (first chewing some tobacco)
  The tobacco sails right past the thin lever, hits the boiler pipe and slides down, out of sight.
  
  Flash sniffs his food bowl.
  
  > look at what you're carrying with you
  You're carrying a hunk of meat, a spur, a tin, a pamphlet, your pocketwatch, your hat, and a scrap of paper. You are wearing your right boot, left boot, pants, and overcoat.
  
  Halfway between the door to the outside and your jail cell, the metal contraption puffs some steam into the office.
  
  > examine the pants
  Rugged, blue denim.
  
  Flash raises an ear halfway and then lets it flap back down.