The Jacket (The Star-Rover)
utchins. Al Hutchins was serving a forty-years' sentence, and was in hopes of being pardoned out. For four years he had been head trusty of San Quentin. Tha
thousand dollars and of the promise of a pardon, cou
came into my cell intent on murder. Hi
" he ordered
entrance to solitary, and exposed my poor wasted body, the skin ridged like brown parchment over the r
d it?" the Wa
tor Jackso
the h
len
l stand ten day
ur
nounced savagely. "But we'll try it
on the flat-spread jacket. The Warden se
er," he
weak to succeed, and could only sp
n," was Jacks
done with him," said the Warden. "Lend him
y back, where I stared up i
our last chance now. Come across with the dynamite. The moment it is in my hands I'll take you out of here. You can bathe and shave and get clean clothes. I'll let you loaf for six months on hospital grub, and then I'll put you trusty in the library. You can't ask me to
ugged his shoulde
, you start in the
hen I remembered Morrell's trick. Now, if ever, was the need of it; and now, if ever, was the time to practise the faith of
ten days, when you unlace me, I smile up at you in the same way, will you give
nks, these college guys,
ic man, and he took my reque
get an extra cinchi
u can cinch me as tight as you please, but if I smile ten days f
sure of yourse
ade the proposi
ligion, eh?
e life than you can ever reach the end of. Make it a hundr
will more than d
you have you won't even lose the price of the two five-cents
k the face off of you
se, and I'll still have enough face left with which to smile. In the meant
may be both, and, in addition, he may have faith. I know now that I had the faith and so acted on it. I believed what Morrell had
sensed this faith that i
ok. He got religion. He said that a golden chariot was coming to take him to heaven, and he sat down on top the red-hot range and sang hymns and hosannahs while he cooked. The
nding squeal,"
t, why don't you accept my
e plight. His face was convulsed. He clenched his hands, and, for a moment, it seemed that he
ou'll have to go some to smile ten days from now. Roll him over, boys, and cin
ce shed my flesh, while my muscles were attenuated to mere strings. I had neither the strength nor bulk to steal more than a little, and the little I stole I swear I managed by sheer expansion at the
sessed ten or twelve thousand dollars, and his freedom was in sight if he obeyed orders. Later, I learned that there was
back while he drew the lacing light, he constricted me as no man had ever before succeeded in doing. So severe was this constriction of my frail frame upon my vital organs that I felt, there and then, immediately, that death was upo
ht," Captain Jamie
tell you nothing can hurt him. He's a wo
lacing and my back. He brought his foot to bear upon me, with the weight of his bod
" he said. "You know your job. Now r
ion the first time I went into the jacket, I would surely have died in the first ten minutes. But I was well train
id the Warden to me. "Start that
heart threatened to burst, while my mind reeled, neve