u receive it whether merited or not."

They dragged him off, strapped him, hand and foot, and writhing,
foaming, like the untamed wild beast that he was, they thrust him
under the great prison pump.

"That will cool his royal blood," laughed a guard, as the fearful
force of the cold current beating upon his shaven head knocked him
senseless.

Drenched and beaten, utterly exhausted, he lay like a limp rag, until
three men had spent their strength upon the pump. Then to the pool
they dragged him, and "ducked" him three times into the dark, stagnant
water. Then back to the warden who asked if he "thought he had
enough."

"Not enough to make me take your jaw," was the foolish answer.

"The lash," said the warden, and the miserable, half-drowned creature
was taken away to be beaten "into subjection."

The guard overlooked the punishment. A stout, burly convict was
required to perform it. He would have refused, being in like strait,
only that he knew the uselessness. He had been there a long time,
forty years, and according to his sentence would be there for fifty
more. He had picked up a little scripture at the prison Sunday
school, so that when he lifted the whip above the back they had made
bare for it, he whispered, by way of apology:--

"And one Simon, a Cyrenian, him they compelled to bear the cross."

But Jim didn't understand even if he had heard. All he heard was that
low, patient voice calling him "friend."

In the afternoon he was sent down to the mines, subdued, but not
conquered. Every evil passion of his nature had been aroused, and
would never slumber again.

After that first day's experience he seemed indeed a wild beast. He
fought among the prisoners, rebelled against the rules of the prison,
would have nothing to do with any but the worst of the men, shirked
his work until he had to be strapped and beaten, in short, made a
record that had never been surpassed by any previous man on the prison
record.

Yet, when there was danger of any kind, he was the first there. One
morning there was an explosion in the mine, and more than a score of
prisoners were in danger of being suffocated before help could reach
them. Indeed everybody was afraid to venture in that black hole from
which the hot, sulphurous gases were pouring. Everybody but Jim. Even
the warden had to admit Jim's courage. "He aint afraid of the devil,"
he declared, when he saw the boy jump into an empty coal car, call to
the mule to "git