was doing. But I would have made no difference if I had known. He was a convict, sir, and he was attempting to escape. If he was only half-witted, as you say, he should have been in the insane asylum, not in the penitentiary."
So that was that.
If Asa ever gave a convict a smile it had never been recorded. It is a known fact that he was never seen to frown upon a convict. He was, in short, the smileless, unyielding personification of "duty," and every convict hated him for what he was. When Asa shot he shot to kill—and he never missed. Four little white crosses on the bleak hillside near the prison proclaimed his flawless marksmanship.
Why was this big sandy-haired, steel-blue-eyed, middle-aged Asa Shores liked by his brother guards? There were many reasons why. It was as if Asa's unnatural, cold, vigilant, unfeeling attitude toward the convicts was offset each day when he came off duty by a healthy, wholesome desire to drop duty as a work-horse sheds an irritating harness. He was the life of the guards' quarters; a big good-natured, playful fellow, who thoroughly enjoyed a practical joke, whether he be the victim of the joke or the instigator. If he had a temper he had never allowed it to come to the surface. He excelled in all sports in the gymnasium, and somewhere, somehow, he found more funny stories than any other man on the force. The trite old saying that "he would give a friend the shirt off his back" fitted him like a new kid glove. He gave freely to his friends, and, in giving, seemed to find real joy.
After twelve years' service on the guardline, Asa was still an ordinary wall guard. This would seem discouraging to many: but not so to Asa. It was not generally known that he drew a larger salary than did the other wall guards. He was an excellent wall guard. Hence, he was kept on the wall, while newer men on the force were promoted to better positions. But Asa drew the salary of a shift captain and was therefore content.
He did not even seem to mind when he was taken from comfortable Tower Number One, morning shift, and detailed permanently to Tower Number Three on the "grave-yard" shift at night from eight P. M. to four A. M. This change was deemed necessary for several reasons. First, because Asa positively refused to discriminate between short-termers and long-termers or desperate men and harmless "nuts," when using his rifle to stop a "break" or the attempt of a single convict to escape.
The men being locked in their cells at night, Asa, as a night guard, would have little opportunity to practice rifle shooting with a running convict as the target. Another reason for detailing him to Tower Number Three was because trouble was expected some night at that point in the yard, and with sure-fire Asa on the job the officials felt that any attempt of the convicts to escape would be promptly frustrated.
One of Asa's wholesome habits, when no convicts were near him, was singing. It was not singing, really, but Asa though it was and he shortened the long, lonesome hours at night on Tower number three with songs—song, rather, because he knew and sang but one. It was not a late or popular song, and, as Asa sang it, it sounded like the frogs that croak in the marshes at night:
"When I die and am buried deep,
"I'll return at night to take a peep
"At those who hated me.
"I'll ha'nt their homes and spoil their sleep,
"Chill their blood: the skin will creep
"On those who hated me."
Not a pretty song; nor did it make cheerful those guards who passed near Tower Number Three while making the night rounds. But Asa loved that song.
IT WAS while the wall was being extended another two hundred feet to make room within the inclosure for a new cell house that Asa shot the "lifer," Malcolm Hulsey.
