Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1915-03-05

come by stealth upon his adversary,
grasp him by the throat and crush the
life out of his body. Within year
he had acquired the arm and fingers
of q Hercules.
But within that year new hopes had
come to him. He realized, when the
first At of brooding had passed, that in
Ricardo alone lay the hopes of discoV'
ering where his wife and daughter
we're. He must save him, not kill him;
hut he must place him at his mercy,
so that he could wiring the truth from
the Italians lying lips.
One day John Haynes came upon an
article in an old magazine which gave
him his first coherent plan of escape.
II contained a description of a new
scientific toy, known as gyroscope, to-
eetber with a diagram for its con-
struction. Within a few days, under
tbe nlea of wishing to learn a trade,
he had been transferred to the ma
chine shop.
In the machine shop, as soon as ne
had familiarized himself with his sur
roundings and had become part OF
the force. Haynes worked feverlshly
nm his machine. He had torn out and
secreted the pages of the magazine de-
scribing it, had pored over them at
night in his cell, straining his eyes I'M
der the light of the electric globe over
the entrance until he knew each WORD
and every line of the diagram by
heart. In the machine shop no very
close watch was kept upon his move
ments. 1t was comparatively simple to
secrete a bolt here and a nut there
and to collect them later into a re-
mote corner of the big building. AS
the men were searched only when they
went out, and not during the day,
nothing hindered him from carrying
out his plans. He forged the iron In
the intervals of hammering out bolts;
he threaded the screws among hum
dred others; and at last the day ar
rived when he had his machine all but
completed and hidden in heap OF
waste.
On the next day the waste was sold.
Haynes found the shop empty, with
nothing to show for his labors. He
was forced to start over again. BY the
time his machine was again nearing
completion the third year of his i'm
prisonment was ended.
Then he was taken out of the ma
chine shop and set to cobbling shoes.
Again his hopes were dashed to the
ground. In this manner the fourth
year passed. The fifth was half COM
pleted when a change of management
in the penitentiary enabled him to re-
turn to the machine shop. Doggedly
he began his labors once more. This
time he must succeed, for Ricardo
would be set free in six months time
Ricardo, whose venom against him
had but increased during the years OF
his Imprisonment, who never passed
him but with jeers and curses.
When but two months longer of the
Italians time remained to be served
the gyroscope was again completed
and hidden away in the new pile OF
waste which had accumulated. No.
there remained the more difficult part,
the making Of the gas engine and the
application Of the one to the other SO
that the motive power could be turned
on or shut off at will. The gas engine
in itself was a comparatively simple
affair-in fact, at the last Haynes sim
ply appropriated one from among the
constituent parts of powerful auto
mobile which was being manufactured
for an exhibition of convict labor. The
attachment device racked Haynes
brains for several days. When but a
month remained, more by accident
than by design he hit on the solution.
And then remained the task Of max,
ing an experimental test of the mech.