Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/22

10 grafting on the prisoners they stopped short of oppression—in short, to manage the prison (and its annual appropriations) for his political friends, while carefully preserving the appearance of administering it as a penal institution. He was a small, sandy-haired, wrinkled man, who had been known to his home district as "Foxy Zug."

"We 've got a pris'ner here," the day captain said, "that don't answer questions. I think he 's kind o' dotty. I 've filled this out the best I can." He put his paper on the warden's desk and held it with a forefinger pointing. "Sam Daneen 's the name on the mittimus. He looks about thirty-five, now he 's cleaned up. But I can't get his religion—ner whether he 's married."

"Ol' bach'ler," Johns put in, authoritatively. "He 's an ol' bach'ler. They always are."

"What 's the matter?" the warden asked. "Sulky?"

The day captain rubbed his forehead. "No-o. He don't seem to hear you. I don' know but what he 's simple. When you prod him, he jus' looks round at you an' sort o' don't see you. Jim had to strip him—an' do everything else fer him. Mebbe he 's sick. I don' know."

"What 's he in fer?"

Johns interposed: "Say, Warden, don't you remember the wreck on the Little Sandy—down by the Gorge—on the D. & C.? Judge Purvis gave him life fer it."