ks. Out of
these commonplace details was to come the final tragedy. Those men in
faded overalls were preparing for his death,--a limit had been fixed to
the very hours that he might live. On the morning of the tenth of June
he would see earth and sky from that window for the last time!

Chance passers-by with no very urgent affairs of their own on hand,
drifted up from the street, and soon a little group had assembled in the
alley to watch the two carpenters at their work, or to stare up at
North's strongly barred window. Now and again a man would point out this
window to some new-corner not so well informed as himself.

Whenever North looked down into the alley that morning, there was the
human grouping with its changing personnel. Men sprawled on the piles of
boards, or lounged about the yard, while the murmur of their idle talk
reached him in his cell. The visible excuse which served to bring them
there was commonplace enough, but it was invested with the interest of a
coming tragedy, and North's own thoughts went forward to the time when
the fence should be finished, when somewhere within the space it
inclosed would stand his gallows.

Shortly before the noon whistles blew, two little girls came into the
alley with the carpenters' dinner pails. They made their way timidly
through the crowd, casting shy glances to the right and left; at a word
from one of the men they placed the dinner pails beside the pile of
lumber and hurried away; but at the street corner they paused, and with
wide eyes stared up in the direction of North's window.

A moment later the whistles sounded and the idlers dispersed, while the
two mechanics threw down their hammers and took possession of the lumber
pile. After they had eaten, they lighted their pipes and smoked in
silent contentment; but before their pipes were finished the crowd began
to reassemble, and all that afternoon the shifting changing groups stood
about in the alley, watching the building of the fence. At no time were
the two carpenters without an audience. This continued from day to day
until the structure was completed, then for a week there was no work
done within the inclosure. It remained empty and deserted, with its
litter of chips, of blocks and of board ends.

On the morning of the first Monday in May, North was standing before his
window when the two mechanics entered the yard from the jail; they
brought tools, and one carried a roll of blue paper under his arm; t