I was permitted to visit him the next day, and found him shivering, heavily ironed, in a cold, miserable shanty known as the town jail. Knaggs made light of his discomfort and the long term of imprisonment before him, but was inconsolable at the death of his leader. "A whiter man never breathed, Mr. de Windt," said the man, with tears in his eyes; and although I knew Knaggs for a consummate villain, I could scarcely restrain a feeling of pity for the abject figure before me. Nor, indeed, could I think of the dead man without compunction, for I could not forget the feeling of gratitude that had prompted him to save my notes from the greedy grasp of his confederate.
"He always spoke well of you," said the man, "and if he'd only known last night that the swag was yours he'd have been alive now. But I suppose the game was up, anyhow, with that J—— on our tracks."
A FORM OF PUNISHMENT FOR CRIMINALS USED IN THE KLONDIKE AND KNOWN AS THE "WOOD-PILE."
From a Photograph.
And Hiram ground his teeth in silent rage as I left him—to be eventually sentenced to ten years "on the wood-pile," a local form of punishment which, owing to the Arctic climate, is seldom endured for long.
I was permitted to retain the gold chain and medallion, which contained a faded portrait of W——'s wife. Mary W—— still wears the little locket in memory of the worthless scamp who wrecked her life, but who, nevertheless, had loved her in his own wild way.
Two Girls in Japan.
By Irene Lyon.