4
the Sunday fiction J magazine, October 21. 1917.
Illustrated by Curt Gfroerer
" j
By JOHN BLUNT
f
NDREW GREEN
beard his sentence
with scant atten
tion. His mind was
of the slow type
that is capable of
centering cnly upon
one thing at a time;
and just then his
thoughts were not
4n that court of
Tustice at whose
I ar. for the first time in his life, he stood
i. prisoner.
Something the Judge said concerning
live years, with a reference to leniency
for n first offense, he realized vaguely
;.m the point of this oration to which he
v compelled, risen on his feet, to listen
Five years? And "good behavior"-if
remembered the term rightly would
tut that down to but little more than
three. Tt was going to be easy. Just as
he had thought. "
Andrew Oreen had no kick coming so
h. felt, in his plodding way. A trial by
I is peers had found him guilty; now he
im being 'Vent up," to upend approxi
mately one-twelfth of his natural life un
der lock and key.
Thix vi m what he had expected from
II. a iriM.-nt the hand of the policeman
dropped fin Ms shoulder, i rresting him in
the act of what afterward was spoken of
us "hurglarlou.s entrance." .Yet he had
i onimitted no crime, as he saw it.
A man owed birr money. An iictumn
lated debt, that had Brown week by week
till It amounted to quite a sum. lie had
worked for it, wr.ntcd it. and when he de
manded payment it was refused. Always
v. Ith excunes. but they were proven lies.
Tor one day the, man his employer
v ithout wri-pln; had clr.sed the doors of
bl. husines-. i" '.'ring himself bankrupt.
It was Just a trick to heat all his cred
itors, this r.ppnrent failure. Soon the
man had been round, openly boasting of
hi.s cleverneHs in swindling those he
owed.
And ho he had money, had he. to pay
Andrew Green Ms back wages? Slowly.
always. Andrew had sat down to think
I I over. He wanted to be a good citizen;
to act within the law.
He had gone to a firm of attorneys to ;
.scp. what could be done. There was
1 thing he could do so they told tym.
Andrew Green had come back and
r. ie some more thinking. Quite thor
1 ughiy ho hod thrashed the matter out.
That incney was honestly and fairly due
1 in,. No two ways about it. When he
ht.il satisfied his own mind that he was
In the right, Andrew Green was ready to
net.
He had gone straight to the beat's
1 onie and taken what was his by force.
That was his way of getting the justice
lr himself that hud been denied him.
Hut
He was caught. That ended it, so far
n Andrew 'ire.cn wus concernod. He
knew how his rash move must lock in
ihe. eyes of the power to which hs had
appealed for help in vuin. He had flag
rantly outraged the law. and for his of
f nc that colli, austere divinity must
I unirh him.
All right, they could take him away;
h k him up. He would pay the penalty,
.'lift- then he felt but. little interest in the
I' n:rth of his term. And still less In what-
r orde? that imprisonment might
I old in store.
The future. That, wps all he was
('inking of. The world he would have
1 face after he had :ettle his debt.
What war. it going to be like when he
r ;.me out ?
Hack in hi brain, dimly ranged, were
jm ra ps of ttie icings he remembered to
have re.nl ..f ex-jailbirds who had tried
t-i go Mrnipht. ,
They had a hard time of it, those men,
it was niuinrfil. Nobody wanted any
thing to do with them. They- had been
1,1 prison. It was an indelible stigma,
Miiirj- tl rip apart from their fellows--n.aklng
of them outcasts, pariahs, in-
'! 1 oi fate alwo to be his?
I 1 ' ' ho uiip.t not let it be. When he.
I .nl served hj-; time mi. "done his bit"
na tlv more correct technical phrase -l.-
must come out Into the world without
rk Hiking, just as he bad gone from it.
He could not afford to he classed as a
hardened j-ritrlnn! shunned .for that
reason. He would be hunting a job some
three years hence- needing work badly,
II was quite likely.
Yet. if he could just make everybody
see. that he was an honest man who in
trying to get the rights which were de
nied him had been unfortunate enough
to make the blunder of being caught he
must make them see It. There had to be
11 way. It was up to him to think it out."
All through the long railroad Journey
that followed within the hour, sitting In
the stuffy day .coach beside the deputy
sheriff to whose wrist he was handcuffed
by six Inches of steel, Andrew Green
Kept his slow mind working to plot out a
course toward this sole end.
Hy being perfectly docile, and doing
everything they told him to. he would
get ft clean record from the prison au
thorities. This, he decided, would be the
best way to show what he was.
A model prisoner. That was It It was
the name he would make for himself In
these next few years. . Obedience Itself,
he would be. No one should have a
chance to And fault with him.
Shortly after the prison Itself was
reached. Andrew Green, received within
Its portals, was given a bath, a hair cut
and a complete change of clothing at the
state's expense, from which he emerged
also minus his name, to be . Identified
i.enceforth by a series of numerals only.
He was No. 11 08.
II.
A GUARD appeared to take the new
comer to the doctor for examina
tion while he was n the midst of an in
spection of his new garments, which
lacked the degrading stripes. This must
be one of those "reformed" prisons of
which he hazily recollected to have
heard. No. 1106 told himself as he fol
lowed the guard from the doctor's office
to that of the warden.
It was as a little white-haired, apple-
cheeked gentleman, very dapper In his
uniform of blue, that the chief officer of
the prison revealed himself to this new
est Inmate. He looked strikingly out of
place In his grim surroundings. No. 1106
thought. . t
The warden glanced hastily through
the Jottings of the medical report.
"Seems to be all right for McClln"
tock's shop." he told the guard. "They're
short-handed there, I hear. Have him
put to work."
No. 110 was led away. The room to
which he was taken was, small, low
ceiled and filled with many men. clad as
was he, at work before a number of bare,
oblong tables. The air in this "shop"
reeked with a familiar acrid odor.
A thick-set guard with an undershot
jaw, relieving the other keeper of his
charge, escorted the latest prisoner to a
vacant chair at one of these tables and
gruffly bade him get busy.
No. 1106 looked down at the men al
ready at this table no one of whom
locked up at him. It seemed they dared
not snatch even an instant from the
He broke off so abruptly that bis whis
per ended in, what sounded like a warn
ing hiss.
"Short, eh?" said a gruff voice behind
No. 1106. It was the superintendent, arid
No. 1106 rose to confront him. "Rotten
work, too!"
McClintock was pawing through the
pile of lumpy, odd-shaped cigars that the
new prisoner's bungling fingers had tried
to make. Some of them were unrolling
even then in the guard's hand.
He-looked ty at No. 1106 with a queer
glint in his small eyes.
"Guess" we'll have to drill you some!"
No. 1106 met his. gaze with anger in
his own.
"I want to see the warden," "he said
shortly.
teen minutes with the rest of nis shop
mates, he was led back to the room with
the long tables and the sickening smell
ot tobacco, and there set to work as on
the day before. '
He stuck to his task again till the
gong rang without complaining. Of
course, the cigars he tried to make
showed no improvement over his pre
vious efforts. And their number was but
slightly less scant at quitting time.
For this McClintock, when he made
hif. tour of inspection among the tables,
struck at him with his heavy first a sec
ond time. But this was the rankest in
justice No. 1106 did not go down under the
blow as he had before. Instead, he saw
it coming, parried, and struck back at
his assailant.
It was a glancing blow that just
grazed the superintendent's cheek.
But what happened after that No. 1106
remembered only as a wild nightmare.
The guard blew his whistle. Other guards
poured into the shop.
AH of them leaped upon the prisoner
and AlcClintock as they fought between
the tables. No. 1106 felt his arms beaten
helplessly down. There came a heavy
rain of blows upon his unprotected face
which bore him, still struggling desper
ately, to the floor.
A sharp pain in his side, as though
from a heavy boot hurled against his
ribs, apd after that, suddenly, all the
lights had gone out for No. 1106.
He did not leave his cell next day with
the rest of the prisoners. He was too
bruised and lame to be of much account.
But this lay-off, as It turned out, was a
lucky thing, after all.
For this day the warden chose to
make his periodical inspection of the cells
an examination pursued for sanitary
reasons..
' As NO. 1106 saw the officer going past
his door along the tier he sprang up,
disregarding the protest of his aches,
calling loudly after him.
'
work over which they bent with a "sort of
feverish haste.
They were making cigars, the new
comer saw. Their trained Angers ap
peared fairly to fly at the task. Of
course Jo. 1106 had never made a cigar.
He turned back to the burly guard.
"Why, 1 don't know how to do this!"
The superintendent of the shop, giv
ing an order to one of the workers at the
next table, turned slowly. He looked No.
106 narrowly in the eyes for a moment
or two in silence. Then he knocked him
down.
. ' The new prisoner got up, bleeding at
the mouth. His hands were opening and
closing at his sides, but his eyes held
only an expression of blank surprise as
h turned, reeling slightly from the diz
ziness in his head, to look after the
guard, who had already turned away.
A sharp tug at the bottom of his
Jacket pulled him down into that vacant
chair at the table. No. 1106 looked half
dazedly around.
"Why " he began.
"Shtit up!" mumbled the convict be
side him, his gaze still on his work. "Un
less yuh want to have it handed to yuh
again, pon't let him catch yuh loafin'.
Grab some o' that tobacco an' git busy,
like yuh was told!"
Dumbly, without reasoning. No. 1106
did as he was bid. After a while he could
make something that was an apology, at
least, for a cigar. For the rest of that
afternoon, till the gong rang, he worked,
clumsily, stolidly on. But always with a
smoldering fire of Indignation glowing
hidden within htm. He had been struck
unfairly!
"Good night fer yours, bo!"
The prisoner in the seat beside him,
his own w?rk stopped, nodded at the
mall heap of misshapen tobacco rolls in
front of No. 1106" s place.
"Yuh're new here, so I'll tip yuh off,"
went on the convict in that same guard
ed murmur. "This shop, like the broom,
the chair, the overall factory an' the rock
pile, works under eontrac. . Di IT runt
folms on the outside buys our labor
"We gotta toln out so much wolk
ev'ry day. Else his nobs. McClintock,
ain't goln' to drag away his little rake
on at the end the year the bonus they
give him on whatever we toln out over
an' above the amount called for in the
contrac".
"Are yuh hep now? Yuh're s'posed to
make so many cigars ev'ry ten .hours.
Real ones, too, y'understand. Yuh fall
below that number, an' well, yuh'll see,
all right, what's goln' to drop onto you.
Yuh ain't done a full half-day's ' woik
here "
The other shoved him rudely Into his
place ut the end of the line of workmen
thai now had formed, ready for depar
ture, in the aisle betw een the tables. The
order came to march, and the close
drawn, single file of convicts wound from
the shop.
Outside in the corridor, as No. 1106,
tailing the procession, swung to the right
down the long, narrow hall toward a dis
tant clatter of cutlery on crockery that
advertised the whereabouts of the room
in which the prisoners were fed, a hand
descended upon ins shoulder.
"Discipline," said the voice of McClin
tock behind him.
Two guards, who had -been watching
the line as it passed, stepped briskly for
ward and jerked No. 1106 from his place. ,
But now he felt his wrath giving way
to curiosity. What possible punishment
could be visited on a man who, in his
very first attempt at such work, had
failed to produce as much as the sea
boned laborers? To discipline anyone for
that it was a joke.
Unresisting, No. 1106 allowed himself
tc be borne away to his cell, where he
was locked Up for the night. They were
depriving him of his supper. Well, that
didn't hurt. He had no appetite; the
smell of the tobacco he had been cpn
stantly handling for more than four
hours had taken away all desire for food.
But when he saw the warden in the
morning
That guard, McClintock, was a brute.
He would prefer" charges against him
right away bring about his Instant dis
charge. Such a ruffian wouldn't be tol
erated there a day longer when he was
shown up. The big bully!
Only and this thought made No. 1106
pause from the way that prisoner spoke
who had sat beside him at the table in
the shop, as though what had happened
to him was a regular occurrence, almost -
it was funny that the guard hadn't
been reported before.
But probably all the rest of the pris
oners under his charge were too much
afraid of him to make the "report. We'll,
No. 1106 was not afraid."
When they bpened the door of his cell
next morning to lead him out he repeated ,
his demand of the night before that he
be taken to the prison's head.
A laugh was his answerj The turnkey
who gave it. accompanied - the mocking
guffaw with a push that sent him stum
bling, at the peril of his neck, down a
steep, dark flight of stone steps to the
corridor below. ; ' ,
Here he was buffeted Into line with
the other prisoners on their way to
breakfast After he had been fed In fif-
The little pink-and-whlte gentleman
came back. No. 1106 told him his story.
"Aren't you mistaken ?" asked the
warden, but iu the tone of one addressing
a fractious child, scared by its own in
vented terrors. "I am sure nothing like
that can happen, here!"
"No?" said the, new prisoner eagerly.
He pressed closer to the bars of the
door. A turnkey who had been fidgeting
outside with a muttered oath hastened
forward. But he was too late to prevent
No. 1106 from pulling up his jacket and
undershirt, thus exposing to the warden's
eyes the .great, angry welts that stood
out on his flesh in livid ridges.
"That happened here," the prisoner
said grimly.
The warden was hesitating, fingering
his chin. Plucking his sleeve, the turn
key nodded vindictively toward the man
behind the bars.
"Got into a bad mlx-up with some of
his old pals on the way here," the keeper
lied. "He's been givin" usall kinds of
trouble since he came. Now he's tryin'
to get the guards In wrong, if he can.
You don't want to believe all he tells you,
cap!"
The warden looked relieved.
"That's straight!" the turnkey nodded
quickly, following up his advantage. He
looked back at No., 1106 and shook his
head. "He's a bad one, he is!"
-
iii. :
'T'HA.T. was the reputation the guards
. X saw was fastened upon him.
Though he settled down from then on,
doing his work as he was bid, without
remonstrance for the cuffs with which
that unskilled labor was received, and
offering no further show of resistance to
whatever form his rough handling took,
nevertheless he was branded and singled
out as a "bad one" only temporarily un
der control.
' His enemies were out to "get" him
now, for he had committed the ultimate,
unpardonable offense of "squealing."
His every move was watched with
catlike vigilance. Some day he would
. make a' slip, do something for which he
could be punished with a semblance of a '
reason; and then :.
" But the weeks went by, anil the
months, and still No. 1106 made no slip.
He had remembered that he was going to
be a "model prisoner." It was harder
than he had tho'ught. doing this. Some
times, smarting under the injustice of his
treatment, he wanted to rise up and
ant
While the cigars which he made were
' perhaps- less perfect than, the best man
in the shop could turn out, and the num
ber he got done in a day established no
record for his capacity, still he bad
brought his required stint up to the ave
rage. There could be no kick, coming on
him as a laborer, anyhow.
But always that sharp, unrelenting
watch was kept on him. He would do J
something yet that would give his
watchers their chance. .
Or-perhaps that chance might even
be made to order.
At the close of one day, as No. 1106'
stopped work with th clanging of the
big gong, to lean back in his chair to '
survey the results of his past ten hours
of labor as represented by the stack of
well-turned-out cigars on the table be
fore him suddenly he started in sur
prise. That stack seemed smaller than it
should have been. No mistake about it
it was smaller!
No. 1106, impelled by what impulse he
did not know, looked just then toward
the heap of cigars in front of his com
panion on the left. It was twice the size
of his own mound.
The hair at the back of his head bris
tled like a dog's when some unseen men
ace is near. McClintock was standing
behind him. No. 1106 stealthily shifted
his feet under the table, then he rose
suddenly, to wheel on the guard. .
The superintendent of the shop was
looking down at the contrasting piles of
cigars before No. 1106's place and In front
of the other convict. And there was no
mistaking the smile on the guard's face
as he surveyed those differing piles.
Slow thinking as he was, Jto. 1106 was
still not so stupid that he did not under
stand what had happened. To make his
day's work fall below the required
amount, the other prisoners had been
stealing from him, surreptitiously but
steadily, all day long. Doing it under
McClintock's orders, too.
It was a put-up job.
Angrily No. 1106 took a step forward
in the direction of the guard. That was
all McClintock was waiting for, appar
ently. Just this one hint of insubordina
tion. The whistle leaped to his Hps.
Again there came that short, shrill blast.
In through the door, outside which
they had obviously been waiting for Just
tlds signal, two additional guards came
on the run. They took hold of No. 1106,
making him a captive in no time.
McClintock strode up to where hs
stood between the keepers.
"You'll mutiny again, will you?"
growled the superintendent, shoving his
face into No. 1106's white, tense coun
tenance. "Well maybe not, when we're
through with you this time!"
This time it started with solitary con
finement. No. 1106 wat locked in a remote cell,
o small that, by standing in the center
of the floor and sweeping out his arms
to their full length, he could touch all
four walls. It was dark in here, too a
stifling pitch-blackness in which he failed
to see his hand when he held it only an
inch in front of his face.
Fourteen hours, without food or wa
ter, No. 1106 was left in this hole in the
ground alone. He became possessed,
after a while, with the notion that he was
never going to get out, see daylight,
breathe free air again. After that, de
spite the humid atmosphere of the place,
he was kept nice and cool in the cold
sweat that broke out all over him.
After a while, though, he was re
leased. His same two captors, accompanied by
1 McClintock, brought him into another
cell. This was larger and much lighter,
and No. 1106 could make out the furnish
ings of the room in which he now stood
quite clearly.
They consisted, first, of a large, empty
barrel, nailed to a sort of platform of
boards on the floor by one end, the other
tilted toward the ceiling at an angle of
45 degrees by a rope and pulley.
Besides this strange-looking barrel
contraption there was also a cask, smell
ing vilely of brine, in which stood an
odd-shaped paddle of leather and a num
ber of plain wooden chairs ranged about
the wal plainly for the accommodation
of any audience that might be assembled
to witness what was in the habit of going
on in this room.
No. 1106 was stripped to the waist and
bound to the barrel with his arms hug
ging It. In this position he found him
self, unable to move so much as a muscle.
Then, while the other two guards retired
to the chairs against the wall, McClin
tock removed the leather paddle from Its
pickle.
An Ingenious weapon, this. Its flog
ging surface perforated with a number of
little .open holes, wherever it struck the
suction must inevitably draw into these
perforations some of the victim's skin.
No. 1106 received three lashes. There
may have been more; if there were, hs
did not know It. Mercifully with the
third whistling descent of that cruel
leather on his bare back he fainted dead
away.
When he regained his senses he was
back in that inky-black cell from whence
he had been taken to the torture cham
ber adjoining. He was lying on the floor,
his jacket tossed over his head and the
upper part of his body-llke something
useless thrown aside, to await carting
off.
He moved, and the pain made him
scream a!6ud. The flinty surface of the
stone scraping across his raw back
"brought the Icy persplratbm Jetting from
his brow to bathe his 'drawn, anguish
twisted face.
His broad frame shook with the dry
sobs that. were literally wrung from him
b;, an agony of mind more poignant than
any mere bodily pain.
Whipped!
Bad enough to be beaten against odds
and yet with his hands free to give some
account of himself to adversaries. A
man could stand that. '
But to be taken, held helpless like a
dog, a beast, while His heavy body "
heaved ,iwith the shudder that passed
through It. This was the last straw.
When No. 1106 was able to return to
work one had only to look on his face to
see that what had been said of him was
true. He was a. "bad one." - . i
For this reason he was given the con-
fldence of the prisoner In the next cell to
Mtf some little time later.-
He wss an expert safe-cracker doing a
trifling bit of twenty years as. the only
possible solution to a number of puzzling
bank lootings which had thrown the up
per portion of the state Into a rsrltabJ
panic something more than three years
before.
He was planning an escape. Friend
and well-wishers on the outside had suc
ceeded in smuggling in to him a few cun
ning, little tools, and with these he had
now sawed through all but one of the
bars of his cell door.
He also had hidden under the blanket
in his bunk a bunch of skeleton keys. It
was going to be a ridiculously simple
matter to open any door on that tier once
. he had contrived to get outside of his
own.-
Needing help in beating off any inter
ference which might arise when he made
his break, the cracksman had taken the
occupant of the adjoining cell on the
other side into hi.s confidence promised
m Him, lutiaYtjip, inn liUAKjr pris
oner, who would be a "hard nut" to han
dle, a party to the escape.
As No. 1106 also had a name for being '
a tough customer, he might come along,
teo,.if he chose. Was he willing to make
the try for liberty?
No. 1106 was willing.
At gray dawn, two mornings later, his
cell door swung silently open. No. 1106
was ready, and he stepped out Into the
corridor. He felt the muscles under his
jacket swell with this first touch of free
dom. A dim figure rose beside him. It was
the safe-blower he recognized. No. 1106
felt something long and Heavy pressed
into his hand. He looked down.
It was it bar from the cell door of the
cracksman already flitting away around
a bend in the corridor ahead, following
another shadowy form In gray. ' :
No. 1106 stepped after. Round that
bend In the corridor he came face to face
with the same turnkey who had first told
the warden he was a desperate char
acter. No. 1106 swung his iron bar once. The
turnkey went down in his tracks without
a sound something like a telescope clos
ing. Down the dark stone steps No. 1106
lumbered Into the ground-floor corridor
and along It toward the big door thrt led
to the prison yard outside now standing
open, he saw, with the two prisoners
ahead of him just slipping across the
threshold.
A keeper was lying on the floor beside
the open entrance, his head pillqwed on
his arm. Asleep. No. 1106 thought. As
he came opposite the quiet form he
slipped In something with which the ad-
jamui imaging was wei tx uruwnimi
' pool.
The keeper was not asleep. No. 1106
knew then. He stepped across the body
and emerged- Into the yard.
Straight in his path rose a guard.
. It was McClintock, already raising the
) whistle to his lips.
No. 1106 did not curse him.
He did not open his mouth, which had
again clamped grimly shut.
With one wide sweep of -the hand that
held the bar he passed on. Behind him
the guard, covering his mutilated face
with fils hands., shrieked once with the '
sudden pain. No. 1106, not looking back,
broke into a loping run.
Across the yard toward the wall where
his companions were waiting he pounded.
They had already scaled the top when he
arrived.
Catching the lowered 'hands that were
reached down toward hirn. No. 1106 was
drawn up, helping himself with his knees
along the granite surface till he, too,
rested an instant on the parapet.
Over, then, on the other side, the three
dropped simultaneously. And off across
the spread of open country that separat
ed them from the woods beyond they
sped, bent double running as no one of
them had ever run In his life before.
They had gained that wooded cover
before the first alarm sounded from the
grim stone pile behind them. Out on the
still morning air there boomed the warn
ing cannon.
They turned and plunged on through
the forest. Suddenly their leader the
cracksman stopped.
"Right here. I guess!"
He was down on his knees. Digging
in the underbrush with his hands, he
pulled out a long wooden box, .covered
with zinc against all harm from the
weather. Opened, the box disclosed its
contents as a number of second-hand
suits of clothing, shoes, hats, et cetera, of
all sizes.
"Help yourselves!" The safe-blower
was tearing off his jacket of gray, and
hastily wriggHng Into one of the coats
from the box. "I guess my pals ain't
forgot notbin' we need. Work lively,
now!" '
That night. fri a local that plied a
small branch of trijp main railroad, three
men descended at the depot of a little up
state town. They were shabbily dressed,
it is true; but there was nothing in their
nondescript apparel that would attract
particular notice.
They went straight to a cheap saloon,
Inconspicuously located in the village,
where, at a peculiar knock from their
guide, the door was swiftly opened and
as swiftly closed again after they had
vanished inside.
All took seats round a little table in
the back room. Drinks were ordered
and served.
"Well." said one of the trio, a heavily
built man with a brutal cast of coun
tenance, lifting his glass with a laugh
whose slight trace of nervousness hid
nothing of Its exultancy "here we aref
The cracksman termed forward with
his elbows on the table. He.gave a quick
cod.
"Yes," said he, "and now we're here,
hv. what's the matter with us rettin'
busy? I've got a Job all spotted in this
jerkwater burg. ' The rube bank, yen
know-it's a pipe, and there may be a
thousand apiece In it for us ail. We're
Just the .rlghtnumber. - .
r "You, Jerry,, can come along on the
Inside and help me with the safe. And
for lookout" he paused; turning toward
the motionless, silent bulk of the third
man, who sat slouching far down in his
chair. -"Why. ..you'll do. pal. We can
count you In on this, can't we? That is"
- he gave a sarcastic laugh "that Is. un
less you're afraid t hreakin" the law?
The motionless one stirred.
. "To Hadss with the law!" said An
drew Green, but lately No. 1106, leanln
forward across the table to Join the
splratora.
Whn ds we startr