Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1898-09-12

petual menace.
Granite Mountain glistened in the
glare with it's thousand ruddy points
sparkling like fireflies. Around the
base of the mountain the long canvas
covered sheds gave the appearance of
huge yellow snake coiled up and at
rest. In the sheds where they were
hewins and fashioning the stones that
were to grace the walls of the State
House, the heat was even more fear
full. Tanned and leathery as were the
skins of the States prisoners working
there, they yet gave vent to an occa-
sional sigh; breath came with diff
Guilty, and exhaustion was everywhere
evident. But, since they knew that
this day must come to an end at last,
and since escape was, even in attempt,
sheer folly, the convicts continued to
ply their hammers and chisels without
ceasing. For they knew themselves
to be mere incidents in the building
of the great capitol that was to outliye
them and the memory of them.
There were many among these con-
victs, indeed, to whom this work of
cutting granite at Granite Mountain
was in the nature CT an immense relief
from far greater evil-the Swamps.
In all the history of convict labor there
is nothing more horrible than that
chapter in which the names of those
American convicts who have died in
the swamps areyecorded. These places
have all the loneliness OF the Siberian
steppes, and are plague spots besides.
Consequently, when number of con-
victs were transferred from the swamps
to Granite Mountain, there to be taught
granite-cutting, these men came gradu-
ally to consider themselves as having
beeG lifted from hell to a heaven.
and to behave gratefully as recon-
pense. The guards who paced up and
down at every point of the visible ana
invisible horizon were rarely obliged
TO bring their Winchester into actual
use; attempts at escape were few and
far between-frstly, because the lot
of these conyicts was indubitably the
happiest in the gift of the State of
Texas, and secondly, because the for
nation of the country near Granite
Mountain was especially unfavorable
to success i'll eluding the rifles of the
outposts. 1t was almost possible to
stand at any point on the mountain
itself and see every outlet of the camp
ct once. When it did happen that the
sound of the chisels striking the granite
was interrupted by the sharper
"whang" of Winchesters, the question
usually uppermost in the mind was not
"Did he escape?" but "Did they kill
him, or onlywing him?" Any attempts
at escape were mostly the result of a
sol o. frenzy that convicts are victims
to; it is a state of mind much akin to
the temporary insanity that iuries find
SO convenient label for suicides.
When, therefore, the hot stiffness
of that place was broken On this day
by the quick cracking of several Win
chesters, the granite e-cutters merely
listened moment, sighed, and bent
down again to the veined blocks of
stone before them. In the guard
house the guards who were not on
outpost duty smiled at each other.
One of them said shortly
ITS always on these very hot
days." and the others nodded.
Out on the western ridge of the
great red mountain, John Temple, the
guard whose Winchester had spoken,
was standing over the body of con-
vict who lay prostrate, gray spot on
the dull bed CT rock over which q
little stream of blood was trickling.
Another guard approached presently,
and they carried the would-be fugitive
down into sort of ravine, where the
sun could no penetrate and where
there was both GOODNESS and shade.
Then they sent for the doctor, who
came riding up after little while, and
pronounced the man wounded to
death.
"He may live an hour" he said.
The wounded man opened two
weary eyes; his right hand fumblet
down against the rough sail-clott
uDOn which ha Law atriyi no IN ora or