The Beaver herald. [volume] (Beaver, O.T. [Okla.]) 1895-1923, 1909-03-18

all prisoner friends who might visit
The Doghole" to toss a button into
the air, and while away the time by
searching for it on hands and knees
stood the value OF little things, and
he recognized the fact that con
tlnuous hunt for missing button
would drag the mind away from the
black abyss Of insanity.
Gilhllan. cropping blndly In the
darkness, remembered the advice. He
ripped a button from his striped
jacket and tossed II into the thick air
Listening intently he heard Il fall in
far-away corner OF the cell. and
on hands and knees he started TO
search for Il.
The sport fascinated him. When he
discovered the metal disc he spun IL
up and again started In pursuit. Tho
leaden hours rolled by slowly, but the
game continued. Glnllan blessed the
button. He began to feel love for II.
He called to It when II hid from him
in the cracks between the cold stones,
and he cried Historically over 1t when
he discovered It after a long search.
II seemed alive. 1t became conf
panion to him in that horrible, black
vault into which not one single ray of
| light came to pierece the darkness.
II was on the evening of the sixth day
that Nemesis clinched with Gilhllan.
The prisoner had, up to that moment,
thrown the button up thousand
times and found II "a each occasion by
laboricusly searching on hands and
knees. But on the evening of the
sixth day a peculiar incident hap
Z Dened.
The prisoner threw the button up
in = the blackness. but 1t did not come
down again.
Gilnllan waited with aching ears to
hear the tinkle of the metal on the
stone, but he heard no sound. The
button didn't fall, and the silence that
filed the cell as he stood listening,
hurt him. He clenched his teeth to
strangle a scream of terror that fear
pushed to his lips. What was wrong?
The prisoners trembling knees gave
way under him and he sank to the
floor. His hands moved out into the
darkness and commenced to feel the
stone flooring. but every nerve was
taut.
On every other occasion when he
had tossed up the button he had heard
1t fall distinctly. but he was certain
that there was not the slightest sound
after the last toss. Still. he would
search.
The hot hands crept over the stones
eagerly. feverishly. The fingers
worked madly. but the bare floor
mocked their search. There was nc
button. Again and again and again
the prisoner searched. Through the
cold hours OF the night he crawlet
backwards and forwards till each join
ing between those tombstones OF Hope
seemed familiar to his blind fingers
But there was nothing on the floor
Tho button had not fallen after h'
had jerked 1t into the blackness.
Gilfillan tried to think Why had 4
not returned? he asked himself
What had happened to It? There wal
4 nothing above him but bare walls, ano
yet! Where was It? Again anC
again he whispered the question OF thu
z thick black pail that seemed to heav,
n around him. He asked It In a loude
tone. He screamed 1t. Then some
8 thing like laugh came from on,
I. corner Of that misunderstanding pit o
d horror, and Gilfillan was pani,
K stricken.
e Imagination. contrary to the opinion
af 40
a ach. and the bread and water diet tina
d Gilfillan had been receiving was no
d sufficiently weighty to keep 1t down
D. The prisoner began to see things. Th
g thick waves of curse-incrusted dark
e ness welled up from the corners an,
Il smothered him. Invisible hand
o grasped his throat and strangled him
IT He kicked at the door leading into tn
n dark corridor opening into the mai
Il wing, but Warder Tomlinson, of tn
d night watch, was slightly deaf. an
10 did not hear him. He raced aroun
% the cell with Terror-grasping, gibbel
ing Terror-at his heels, and tn
e stone vault echoed to his wild screani
n of agony.
Is When Warder Dunworth opened Il.
e door on the morning of the seve at
n day to acquaint Gilfllan of the fac
r, that his term in dark cell was ovei
of the hands OF Terror had complete
Is their work. The prisoners face wa
ID battered beyond recognition wher
,r he had dashed against the walls in hi
u. mad race, and he shrieked Wild
Iy when the warder attempted to dri
,e him into the light
Eleven years afterwards, when a
o. enlightened prison controller did ava
le with the dark cells. the masons, tea
IL ing down the black vault at Enloti
ls found a jacket button securel
a fastened In thick cobweb near tn
a, ceiling OF the cell. But in the erin
re inal ward Of Enlota insane asylum
IN prisoner still spends his days an
r. nights hunting for that button.