Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/135



ROM across the yards out of the various shops came the convicts tramping into the main building, into the wings and corridors through the steel-barred gates; and throughout the great prison echoed the ring of clanging doors, the clash of the massive bar-locks, the shuffling tread of lock-stepped files, the hoarse, gruff, curt commands of the guards.

Ever the man of prompt and decisive action. Warden Rand had thrown himself into the breach. Too well he was aware that the news would spread like wild-fire to every last prisoner in his charge; and upon its heels, spreading infection with the excitement, he feared an outbreak of insubordination that, as well as not, might develop into a general uprising. Within twenty minutes following what had been the most desperate attempt at wholesale delivery in the history of the institution, every man of the eight hundred convicts within the penitentiary walls was under lock and key.

And then in his office, man after man of those who, though taking no part in the fray, had been present in the carpenter shop was brought before him, subjected to a stern, searching interrogation and led away again. Over an hour this had taken him, and now as he finished with the last one and settled back in his chair, his usually genial face hard and troubled, a heavy frown on his brow, a white-jacketed form came through the doorway