They tried all the punishments, the paddle, the battery, the water-cure, the bull rings, but nothing availed to break the Kid's spirit. Then he was put on a bolt machine.
There was a convict named Dalton working near Archie and the Kid.
Dalton had but one thought left in his mind, and this was that when he got out he would go to where he had concealed a kit of burglar tools.
He had been the victim of some earlier practical jokers in the penitentiary, and had had a locksmith fashion for him tools such as no burglar ever needed or used in a business in which a jimmy, a piece of broom-stick and creepers are all the paraphernalia necessary. Dalton still had fourteen years to serve.
"Well, Jack, how's everything this morning?" the Kid would ask as soon as the guard went down to the other end of the shop.
"Oh, all right," Dalton would reply. Then he would grow serious, grit his teeth, clench his fist for emphasis and say: "Just wait till I get home! By God, if any one springs that kit of mine, I'll croak him!"
"Where's the plant?" the Kid would ask. "In the jungle?"
"Oh, you'll never find out!" Dalton would reply warily.
"Some of the hoosiers or the bulls are likely to spring it," the Kid would suggest.
The possibility tortured Dalton.
"By God," he could only say, "if they do--I'll croak 'em!"
"I wouldn't do that," said the Kid. "Get Dutch here to take you out with a tribe of peter men; he can teach you to pour the soup. Can't you get a little soup and some strings and begin with him now, Archie?"
"Sure," said Archie, grinning, proud to be thus recognized.
"That's the grift; we'll nick the screw; and when you go home you'll be ready to--"
"No," said Dalton determinedly, "I've got them tools planted--but--"
"Why don't you take him out with a swell mob of guns?" suggested Archie.
"Think he could stall for the dip?" asked the Kid. "What do you think, Jack?"
"I'll stick to prowlin'," said Dalton, shaking his head and muttering to himself.
"He's stir simple," remarked the Kid, not without pity.
But the Kid was tired of his new occupation.
"I don't believe I'm a very good bolt-maker," he said to Archie.
"You might cut off a finger, or get Sweeny--"
"Nix," said the Kid. "Not for Willie. I'll need my finger. I'd do a nice job of reefing a kick with a finger gone, wouldn't I?" He looked at his fingers, rapidly stiffening under the rough, hard work.
"Didn't I tell you to stop that spieling?" demanded a guard who had slipped up behind him.
The Kid gave the guard a look that expressed the contempt he felt for him better than any words.
"I'll report you for insolence," said the guard angrily.
"For what?" said the Kid.
"Insolence."
"How could you?" asked the Kid calmly. "You couldn't spell the word."
The guard made a mark on his card.
"You'll be stood out for that," said the guard. The Kid's face darkened, but he controlled himself. For he had another plan.
A few days later he said to Archie:
"Are you on to that inspector?"
"What for?" asked Archie.
"He's boostin' bolts."
Archie thought of this for a long time. It took several days for him to realize a new idea. The inspector, in pretending to throw out defective bolts, threw out quite as many perfect ones. These were boxed, shipped and sold by the contractor, who pocketed the entire proceeds without reporting them to the authorities. The Kid had discovered this system after a week of experience in having his labor stolen from him, and the inspector, more and more greedy, had grown bolder, until now he was stealing large quantities of bolts; and the tasks of Archie and the Kid were becoming more and more impossible of performance. The Kid was silent for days; his brows contracted as he jumped nimbly up and down before his clanking machine. Then one day when McBride was in the shop the Kid obtained permission to speak to him.
"Mr. McBride," he said, "I want a thousand dollars."
McBride took his cigar from his lips, flecked some dust from his new top-coat, and a laugh spread over his rough red face.
"What's the kid this time, Willie?"
"This is on the square," said the Kid. "I want a thousand case, that's all."
McBride saw that he was serious for once.
"I'll blow it off, if you don't," said the Kid.
"Blow what off?"
"The graft."
"What graft?"
"The defectives--oh, you know!"
McBride turned ashen, then his face blazed suddenly with rage.
"I'll report you for this insolence!"
"All right," said the Kid, "I'll report you for stealing. It ain't moral, the sky-pilot says."
Archie saw the Kid no more after that evening; he was "stood out" at roll-call; and in the way the news of the little insular world inclosed in the prison walls spreads among its inmates, he heard that the Kid had been given the paddle and had been hung up in the cellar. When his punishment was ended, he was transferred to the shoe shop and set to work making paper soles for shoes. But he did not work long. He soon conceived a plan which for two years was to baffle all the prison authorities, especially the physicians. He developed a disease of the nerves; he said it was the result of running a bolt machine and of his subsequent punishment. The theory he imparted to the doctors, in his innocent manner, was that the blows of the paddle with the hanging had bruised and stretched his spine.
The symptoms of the Kid's strange affliction were these: he could not stand still for an instant; his nerves seemed entirely demoralized, his muscles beyond control. He would stand before the doctors and twitch and spasmodically shuffle his feet for hours, while the doctors, those on the prison staff and those from outside, held consultations.