e day the _Titanic_ foundered and on the day
Austria declared war on Serbia.

The connection was made, and over the wire came the voice of young
Stewart, crisp as lettuce.

"Special dispatch ... Wyndgate, Vermont, October 27th ... Ready?"
The editor of our paper answered in the affirmative. The rest of us
grouped anxiously around his chair. Stewart proceeded:

"'Hapwell Ruggam, serving a life-sentence for the murder of Deputy
Sheriff Martin Wiley at a Lost Nation kitchen-dance two years ago,
killed Jacob Lambwell, his guard, and escaped from prison at noon
to-day.

"'Ruggam had been given some repair work to do near the outer
prison-gate. It was opened to admit a tradesman's automobile. As
Guard Lambwell turned to close the gate, Ruggam felled him with his
shovel. He escaped to the adjacent railroad-yards, stole a corduroy
coat and pair of blue overalls hanging in a switchman's shanty and
caught the twelve-forty freight up Green River.'"

Stewart had paused. The editor scribbled frantically. In a few words
aside he explained to us what Stewart was sending. Then he ordered
the latter to proceed.

"'Freight Number Eight was stopped by telegraph near Norwall. The
fugitive, assuming correctly that it was slowing down for search,
was seen by a brakeman fleeing across a pasture between the tracks
and the eastern edge of Haystack Mountain. Several posses have
already started after him, and sheriffs all through northern New
England are being notified.

"'Christopher Wiley, lumber magnate and brother of Ruggam's former
victim, on being told of the escape, has offered a reward of five
thousand dollars for Ruggam's capture, dead or alive. Guard Lambwell
was removed to a hospital, where he died at one-thirty'.... _All
right_?"

The connection was broken, and the editor removed the headpiece. He
began giving orders. We were twenty minutes behind usual time with
the papers, but we made all the trains.

When the big Duplex was grinding out newsprint with a roar that shook
the building, the boys and girls gathered around to discuss the thing
which had happened.

The Higgins boy, saucer-eyed over the experience of being "on the
inside" during the handling of the first sizable news-story since he
had become our local reporter, voiced the interrogation on the faces
of other office newcomers.

"Ruggam," the editor explained, "is a poor unfortunate who should
have been sent to an asylum instead of the penitentiary. He killed