Just then a strange dull sound echoed through the silent corridors. Hank started with a nervous jerk. It sounded like a rope or strap suddenly pulled up short and tight.
“What’s that?” Hank asked. Jim’s face was pale for a moment, and his breath was short and heavy.
“Don’t you know? That’s the bag of sand.”
“What bag of sand?” Hank asked.
“Why, they always try the rope that way, to see if it’s all right. If they don’t, it’s liable to break, and they’d have to hang ‘em over again. They take a bag of sand that weighs just about the same as a man and tie the rope to the sand, and then knock the door out and the sand falls. I guess the rope’s all right; I hope so. I don’t want ‘em to make any mistake. It’ll be bad enough to be hung once. I wonder how I’ll stand it. I hope I don’t make a scene. But I don’t really think anyone ought to be blamed no matter what they do when they’re gettin’ hung, do you?
“It seems to me, though, that they might be a better way to kill anyone. I think shootin’ would be better’n this way. That’s the way they kill steers down to the stock-yards and I don’t believe the Humane Society would let ‘em hang ‘em up by the neck. I should think ‘twould be better to take some cell that’s air-tight and put ‘em to bed in there and then turn on the gas. But I s’pose any way would seem bad enough. Did you ever stop to think how you’d like to die? I guess nobody could pick any way that they wanted to go, and mebbe we’d all rather take chances; but I don’t believe anybody’d pick hangin’. It seems to me the very worst way anybody could die. I wonder how they commenced it in the first place. Well, I can’t help it by thinkin’ it over. I’ve done that often enough already, goodness knows. I believe I’ll ask the guard for another drink before I tell any more.”
The guard came at the first call.
“Sure, you can have all the whiskey you want. I was just down to the office a little while ago. Take this bottle. I think it’s pretty smooth, but it’s a little weak. Guess the clerk poured some water in, thinkin’ it was goin’ to the ladies’ ward. You’d better take a pretty big drink to do you any good.”
Jim thanked him as he took the bottle, and then inquired:
“Did you go down to the telephone again to see whether there had anything come over to the telegraph office?”