“I would like a place to sleep.”
“Come this way and go through yonder,” he said, pointing the way to the jailer’s office.
I went as directed. As I entered, the jailer, who was asleep in a large reclining chair, awoke and greeted me pleasantly enough.
“Good-evening. What can I do for you?”
“Can you show a fellow where he can lie down?”
He immediately got up, and picking up his bunch of keys, said, “Follow me.”
I followed him through two huge iron-grated doors, to another door which opened into a great dungeon cell,—Pueblo’s first open portal in creating the criminal and crime. Huge chains with great iron balls attached were lying in the passageway leading to the cell.
As the jailer swung back the monstrous iron door, he said:
“I think you will find a place there. If the hammocks are all taken, you can lie on the floor.”
The great key was turned, and I was in Pueblo’s “Municipal Emergency Home.”