n--his name on the prison books was Michael Murphey, but we knew
him only as "Number 3126"--had "brought" ten years for safe-blowing,
and he was known in the prison yard and shops as a dangerous man.
Twice within my recollection of him he had been put in solitary
confinement for fighting; and he was one of the few to whom the warden
denied the small privileges accorded the "good conducts."

One day a hue and cry was raised and word was quickly passed that
Number 3126 was missing. He had planned his escape craftily. A new
shop building was at that time in process of erection, and each day a
gang of "trusties" went outside to haul stone. Of course, the
safe-blower was not included in this outside gang, but one dark and
rainy morning he included himself by the simple process of hog-tying
and gagging one of the trusties detailed for the job, exchanging
numbered jackets with him, and taking the man's place in the ranks of
the stone-loaders, where he contrived to pass unnoticed by the guards.

The escape was entirely successful. At the critical moment Dorgan had
overpowered the single wagon guard, leaving the man a candidate for
admission to the hospital, and had made his break for liberty. We, of
the inside, never knew, of course, the various steps taken in the
attempt to recapture him. But they all appeared to be fruitless since
Number 3126 was never brought back.

I failed utterly in an endeavor to analyze my own feelings when I
recognized Dorgan and realized that an escaped man from my own prison
was at work for my employers; an escaped criminal and a desperate one,
at that. What was my duty in the premises? Should I bind myself, once
for all, to the brotherhood of law-breakers--the submerged minority--by
shielding this man and conniving at his escape? Or should I turn
informer, telling the contractor-partners of the risk they ran by
keeping Dorgan in the force--the risk that some night, after the money
for the monthly pay-roll had been brought out from town, they would
find the camp safe smashed and its contents gone?

While I was debating this question, inclined first in one direction by
some new generosity on the part of one or the other of my employers,
and again leaning the other way when I remembered that, in the eye of
the law, I, myself, was in precisely the same category with Number
3126, I had another promotion. One evening, just after I had closed
the commissary, one of the water-boys came to tell