The Under Dog | Page 9

an' take dat ticket from her an' de money I gin her beside, if she didn't stay on dat car. I didn't give her de 'velope; I had dat in my han' to show de conductor when he come, so he could see whar she was ter git off. Here it is"--and she handed me the ticket-seller's envelope. "Warn't nothin' else saved me but dat. When dey see'd it, dey knowed den somebody was a-lookin' arter her an' dey give in. Po' critter! I reckon she's purty nigh home by dis time!"
The story is told. It is all true, every sickening detail. Other stories just like it, some of them infinitely more pitiful, can be written daily by anyone who will peer into the cages of Covington jail. There is nothing to be done; nothing can be done.
It is the law of the land--the just, holy, beneficent law, which is no respecter of persons.

II
BUD TILDEN, MAIL-THIEF
"That's Bud Tilden, the worst of the bunch," said the jail Warden--the warden with the sliced ear and the gorilla hands. "Reminds me of a cat'mount I tried to tame once, only he's twice as ugly."
As he spoke, he pointed to a prisoner in a slouch hat clinging half-way up the steel bars of his cage, his head thrust through as far as his cheeks would permit, his legs spread apart like the letter A.
"What's he here for?" I asked.
"Bobbin' the U-nited States mail."
"Where?"
"Up in the Kentucky mountains, back o' Bug Holler. Laid for the carrier one night, held him up with a gun, pulled him off his horse, slashed the bottom out o' the mail-bag with his knife, took what letters he wanted, and lit off in the woods, cool as a chunk o' ice. Oh! I tell ye, he's no sardine; you kin see that without my tellin' ye. They'll railroad him, sure."
"When was he arrested?"
"Last month--come down in the November batch. The dep'ties had a circus 'fore they got the irons on him. Caught him in a clearin' 'bout two miles back o' the Holler. He was up in a corn-crib with a Winchester when they opened on him. Nobody was hurted, but they would a-been if they'd showed the top o' their heads, for he's strong as a bull and kin scalp a squirrel at fifty yards. They never would a-got him if they hadn't waited till dark and smoked him out, so one on 'em told me." He spoke as if the prisoner had been a rattlesnake or a sheep-stealing wolf.
The mail-thief evidently overheard, for he dropped, with a cat-like movement, to the steel floor and stood looking at us through the bars from under his knit eyebrows, his eyes watching our every movement.
There was no question about his strength. As he stood in the glare of the overhead light I could trace the muscles through his rough homespun--for he was a mountaineer, pure and simple, and not a city-bred thief in ready-made clothes. I saw that the bulging muscles of his calves had driven the wrinkles of his butternut trousers close up under the knee-joint and that those of his thighs had rounded out the coarse cloth from the knee to the hip. The spread of his shoulders had performed a like service for his shirt, which was stretched out of shape over the chest and back. This was crossed by but one suspender, and was open at the throat--a tree-trunk of a throat, with all the cords supporting the head firmly planted in the shoulders. The arms were long and had the curved movement of the tentacles of a devil-fish. The hands were big and bony, the fingers knotted together with knuckles of iron. He wore no collar nor any coat; nor did he bring one with him, so the Warden said.
I had begun my inventory at his feet as he stood gazing sullenly at us, his great red hands tightly clasped around the bars. When in my inspection I passed from his open collar up his tree-trunk of a throat to his chin, and then to his face, half-shaded by a big slouch hat, which rested on his flaring ears, and at last looked into his eyes, a slight shock of surprise went through me. I had been examining this wild beast with my judgment already warped by the Warden; that's why I began at his feet and worked up. If I had started in on an unknown subject, prepared to rely entirely upon my own judgment, I would have begun at his eyes and worked down. My shock of surprise was the result of this upward process of inspection. An awakening of this kind, the awakening to an injustice done a man we have half-understood, often comes after years of such prejudice and misunderstanding. With me