The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-05-28
A TRAGIC FIRST NIGHT.
Mime. Modjeska's ''Adrienne" i'm the
Sagebrush.

The theaters? Yes, / like them.
For old bachelors like me there are
few places we could spend the time
between dinner and supper with less
harm than at the theaters. And
man must be somewhere at that time
or else he gets into mischief.
I'm a first nighter. l admit 1t.
There's something about the first per-
Torrance which never gets into play
again at all, and the longer IT runs the
further away it runs from that same
something.
The player folk are conscious of
everything on the first night, and that
makes them remember not to appear
self-conscious. They often forget 1t
later, and an actor who does not APP
pear to be unconscious of his real sell
is thing to drive me out OF the
theater.
But of all the first nights 1 ever saw.
that 1 saw in a little Nevada town
called Carson City was the strangest-
1 was on the way from San francisco
when l got word from friend Oh
mine who was raising potatoes and d
family a little way out of Carson TO
stop off at Reno and run up and see
him and the miss us and the latest kid
He was an old New York boy, and II
did him good to see one OF us now
and then, to hear II the dear old lane
ran as crooked from Grace church to
Central park as ii did when we used
to skate in the park
Well we came in from his ranch to
the hotel in Carson after I'd seen the
big potatoes and the little Riddles, and
he was to stop over night with me to
see me off early in the morning. AS
we were talking of old times, man
rode into town on a horse he'd treated
cruel hard and yelled out as he went
on TO the telegraph Office that the
prisoners had broke out at the state
prison a few miles out of town.
Tom, that was my friends name
you may mind me telling about him
taking me to see bare-fist fight near
Virginia City-jumps up and says we
must go out there, for the warden was
Il friend of his. This wardens name
was Mattheson. A drawer man never
lived.
We got the horses we'd ridden in
from Toms ranch and went out to
that prison. l never had had right
to boast of my riding. L can stay on
the back OF horse when that's the
proper place for me to stay. but that's
only from my habit of doing what I
have to do. But I'm not stylish
rider, nor a rough one.
We made that trip in less time than
you'd believe if 1 told you the dis
lance. Tom was the pacemaker. L
hung on. 1t is one of the proudest
thoughts of my life that 1 hung on.
Many stories have been told in
print of that prison break. I'll not
IL
but I've given you the real name OF
that warden, and 1 must tell what his
part of that tragedy was, because if
he is alive and you print this he may
see it. I'd like him to know 1 re-
member brave man.
There were in that prison more bad
men than were ever gathered together
before or since in an American pris-
on, I was told. 1 believe it.
In the prison yard was a quarry
and a building where shoes were
made. That day the warden went up
stairs in the shoe factory in the reg
ular course of his job. He carried no
arms. A gun in his pocket would in
vite some one to knock him on the
head and take it.
around him. They all had sharp shoe
knives.
Give no alarm said they. cor a
knife in your throat"
For answer to that threat he kick
ed out window as they hustled him
down the stairway. He took a chance
that they wanted him alive
Into the yard they rushed him, cir
cling around him, with knives at his
throat, and whirling toward the open
gate of the big wall. It was open to
let the wagons out from the quarry
Guards with rifles patrolled the TOP
of the wall.
Shoot" says Mattheson.
The guards ran along the top OF
the wall to each side of the gate. They
could scarce see the warden in the
muddle of prisoners.
"Shoot, damn you!" says the ward
en-.
prisoner put his knife against the
warden's throat and said: SHOOT, and
he get this"
Shoot says the warden once
more.
A guard fired and killed the man
with his knife at the warden's throat
But the same bullet broke the war
denis arm.
The muck of them We're circline
toward the gate. Some got out
Guards rushed to help close the gates
but before they closed them the
crowd of prisoners had the warden al
most there and the guards, seems
what the first shot had DONE wer,
afraid.
"Shoot! Never mind me!'' yelled
the warden again, and volley wa
fired. The warden dropped, and s.
did dozen prisoners
They got the gates closed then
Three prisoners were killed and a 10
wounded
The warden was wounded twice. bu
he picked himself up and organized tn
pursuit and saw the last prisoner lock
ed UP in his cell before the surgeon 90
chance to cut out the bullets he ha
stopped
Fte was sitting UP in his bed smokip
cigar with the surgeon swearing a
him for an obstinate fool when we ar
rived and were taken in to see him.
is good to see a brave man.
The surgeon took US to the corrido
where the bodies lay. Some prisoner
had been taken out Of their cells t
watch the men who would never nee
more watching. But it is the way
spoke to one of them, and he locke
at me fairly ugly, but made no repl,
/ spoke to each OF the watchers in tur,
and got only scowls. The surgeon wa
smiling at my nervousness. He explain
ed afterward that the warden had i'm
posed the silence rule. But neye
heard the word of man that gave m
the creeps like the words those me