Page:9009 (1908).djvu/55

Rh kind. “Probably hooked up with some guy long ago,” was the mental remark with which he usually dismissed thought of her.

Lying in his bunk one night, he was startled by a new and disturbing note in the noise of the sleeping prison, now so familiar to him. It was a rasp, a faint scratching, a rubbing of metal upon metal. He listened; after a while he made sure of the sound. It was the purring rasp of a saw rubbing metal, and it came from the cell next to his.

He knew the two in this cell—knew them from watching them as he watched all the others; they were ugly fellows, who always kept to themselves savagely. And now they were sawing the bars! He sat up on his elbow, listening, his heart a-pound with a contagion of excitement.

A voice reached him, a low voice of warning; there was a moving of bodies, a sly creaking of bunks; then along the steel gang-way passed a shadowy guard, his rubber shoes at each step giving a little hiss. A silence followed, or, rather, the noise of the sleeping prison, a heavy Rh