We went to the warden's office, and talked with him a little while, showed him that we were not loaded with giant powder and cross-cut saws, and then we were placed in charge of an usher, and sent through the building to view the mighty manufacturing interests that are carried on inside, where the striped criminals silently and doggedly are moving about at their varied occupations.
After awhile I got gloomy and began to whistle one of my tearful refrains in G. The usher told me to please put up my whistle, and I did so, partly to gratify him and partly because he had a temporary advantage over me. Most every one who has heard me whistle seems glad that his lines have fallen in such pleasant places; but this man, as I afterward learned, did not know the first principle of music. He groped along through life without knowing the difference between a symphony in B, and the low, sad song of the twilight cat.
Pretty soon we came to three men whose faces attracted my attention.
They were the Younger brothers. Their faces were easy of identification from the resemblance to wood cuts published at the time of their capture. I stood silently looking at them for some time.
Their countenances are a study for the reader of human character. Sullen, grim and depraved, they impress the beholder with their utter scorn for the laws and usages of the land. I asked the usher if I guessed right; but he turned away and told me it was against the rules of the institution to point out any one to visitors, or identify the convicts in any way. Then I knew that I was right, because he was so reserved.
I gave one of the men my card and entered into a conversation with him. It wasn't much of a conversation, however, because the usher broke in on me, and shut me off, as it were.
The description that I have given of the Younger brothers in this letter is not over full, owing partly to the fact that the usher wouldn't let me be as sociable with them as I wanted to be; and partly because I afterward discovered, casually, that they were not the Younger brothers.
Speaking of convicts reminds me of my experience with a poor, ignorant man at Laramie—the creature of circumstances—who was sentenced to three years in the Territorial penitentiary, for stealing a pair of flea-bitten bronchos. He was convicted mainly on the testimony of a man, who was afterward sent up for the same offence, and it was the general belief that the first-named man was entirely innocent. He was trusted about the penitentiary at all times, and allowed to go outside the walls without guard, but never betrayed the trust reposed in him.
I went to him and talked with him. His spirits and health were broken, and he told me, with tears in his eyes, that he hoped only for a merciful death to end his sufferings. While acting as guard to a party of convicts outside one day, they fell upon him and nearly killed him with a huge stone, and then leaving him bleeding and insensible.
He could not tell of his sufferings without crying. I undertook to enlist sympathy for him, and when I told his tale of misfortune to the governor and authorities in that thrilling way of mine, I had no difficulty in securing his pardon.