Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-12-23
FROM NOW ON

! TO pitch that one seamy room at Too
lcr's and the rotten race track exist
cnce into the discard, and he was ready
now, equipped, to play the part he
meant to play. He had spent the years
here learning not to eat with his knife,
either literally or metaph6rcaAy. But
there we're only sixty three days left,
and there was still one thing he hadn't
done, one problem still left unsolved,
which of late had been growing into
! nightmare proportions. In the earlier
| years of his sentence he had put it
| aside--until the time came. That time
was here now--and the problem was
still aside.
lie had made all other preparations.
| He had even communicated secretly, by
means Of a fellow convict who was 60
ing out, discharged, with Square John
Kelly, of the Pacific Coast Saloon in
| San Francisco. with whom he had in
vested his savings-that $4,000 at per
cent. And he had had foresight enough
! to do this months ago in order to give
Kelly time to pull the money out OF
his business and have it ready in cash
| for he wasn't quite sure where the law
stood on this point. Failing to recover
the proceeds of the Tydeman robbery,
the law might confiscatc those savings
If the law knew anything about them.
But the law didn't-and wouldn't.
Square John had sent back word that
everything was all right.
But there was still one problem left
to solve--the way, once he was a free
man again and outside these walls, OF
getting that hundred thousand dollars
away from under the noses of the po-
| lice and then giving the police the slip.
! And this. grown to monumental pro-
portions in the last few months, rose
, before him now like some evil familiar
that had taken possession of both his
waking and sleeping hours. And there
came upon him now. as 1t had come
! again and again in these last months,
| that scene in the hospital when he had
| first opened his eyes to consciousness
and they had rested on the face of the
man who had run him to earth-Bar-
jan, Lieutenant Joe Barjan, Of the
Frisco plain clothes squad. And Joe
Barjan's words were ringing in his ears
now; ringing, somehow, with q cursed
knell in them:
Don't fool yourself! It's hell of
long time in the pen. And IL you
think you could get away with the wad
when you get out again, you've got
| another think coming too! Take 1t
from me!''
An acute sense Of the realization Of
the tangibility of his surroundings
seized upon him and brought chill TO
his heart. That hard, unyielding cot {:
these walls, that Gagged him within their
few scanty feet of space; his keepers
voices, that lashed out their COM
mnnds; the animals, of which he was
one, that toiled upon the eternal
treadmill of days whose end but fore
told another of like horror and loatEing
to come! Barjan had told the truth |;
more Of the truth than Barian evcc
fnew, or could know, that he had told.
1t had been a hell Of long time. Long (!
His face, as he still paced the cell,
grayed under the prison pnllor. God,
1t had been long. Years Of damnablc
torment that had shut him out from the
freedom that he loved! 1t had been a
price beyond all reckoning that he had
paid for that hundred thousand dollars.
But he had paid it! lie had paid it
raid it. He had gone all the way
gone the limit. Was Barinn, right in
one thing. right In that other thing ms
wcll-that at the end they would beat
, Kim?
His hands curled into knotted Jumps.