he could succeed in telling me what it was that caused him to be so
convulsed. I told him to take his time, cool off gradually, as I had
eighteen months, and could wait patiently. At last, being able to
control his feelings sufficiently to tell me, in the midst of his
outbursts of laughter, he said, "You look just like one of them zebras
in Barnum's Circus!" When my attention was called to the matter, sure
enough, I did look rather striped, and I, amused at his suggestion,
laughed also. Soon an officer came gliding around in front of the cell,
when our laughing ceased. My companion was a young fellow from Doniphan
County. He got drunk and tried to rob an associate, still drunker, of
a twenty dollar gold piece. He was arrested, tried and convicted of
robbery, receiving a sentence of one year. Directly an officer came,
took him out of my cell and conducted him to another department. All
alone, I sat in my little parlor for nearly an hour, thinking over the
past. My reverie was at length broken by the turning of my door lock. A
fresh arrival was told to "git in." This prisoner had the appearance of
just having been lassoed on the wild western prairies. He resembled a
cow-boy. His whiskers were long and sandy. His hair, of the same color,
fell upon his shoulders. As soon as the officer had gone away and
everything had become quiet, I asked this fellow his name. "Horserider,"
was his reply, from which I inferred that he was a horse-thief. "How
long a term have you?" was my next question. "Seven years," was his
reply. I comforted him by saying it would be some time before he rode
another horse.

The next part of the programme consisted in a little darkey coming in
front of our cell with a rudely constructed barber's chair. The cell
door opened, and an officer said to me, as if he would hit me with a
club the next moment, "Git out of there." I went out. Pointing to the
barber's chair, he said, "Squat yourself in that chair." I sat down.
"Throw back your head." I laid it back. It was not long before my raven
mustache was off, and my hair cut rather uncomfortably short for fly
time. After this tonsorial artist had finished his work then came the
command once more, "Git in." I got in. It now came Mr. Horserider's turn
to bid a long farewell to his auburn locks. He took his place in the
chair, and the little darkey, possibly for his own amusement, cut off
the hair on one side of the head and left the other untouched. He then
shav