d at it first with a touch of real surprise,
but a moment after lifted his hands and helped pull it down.

"Never mind," cautioned the guard, "put your hands down. I'll get it
over."

Cowperwood dropped his arms. When it was fully on, it came to about his
chest, giving him little means of seeing anything. He felt very strange,
very humiliated, very downcast. This simple thing of a blue-and-white
striped bag over his head almost cost him his sense of self-possession.
Why could not they have spared him this last indignity, he thought?

"This way," said his attendant, and he was led out to where he could not
say.

"If you hold it out in front you can see to walk," said his guide; and
Cowperwood pulled it out, thus being able to discern his feet and a
portion of the floor below. He was thus conducted--seeing nothing in his
transit--down a short walk, then through a long corridor, then through a
room of uniformed guards, and finally up a narrow flight of iron steps,
leading to the overseer's office on the second floor of one of the
two-tier blocks. There, he heard the voice of Kuby saying: "Mr. Chapin,
here's another prisoner for you from Mr. Kendall."

"I'll be there in a minute," came a peculiarly pleasant voice from the
distance. Presently a big, heavy hand closed about his arm, and he was
conducted still further.

"You hain't got far to go now," the voice said, "and then I'll take
that bag off," and Cowperwood felt for some reason a sense of sympathy,
perhaps--as though he would choke. The further steps were not many.

A cell door was reached and unlocked by the inserting of a great iron
key. It was swung open, and the same big hand guided him through. A
moment later the bag was pulled easily from his head, and he saw that he
was in a narrow, whitewashed cell, rather dim, windowless, but lighted
from the top by a small skylight of frosted glass three and one half
feet long by four inches wide. For a night light there was a tin-bodied
lamp swinging from a hook near the middle of one of the side walls. A
rough iron cot, furnished with a straw mattress and two pairs of dark
blue, probably unwashed blankets, stood in one corner. There was a
hydrant and small sink in another. A small shelf occupied the wall
opposite the bed. A plain wooden chair with a homely round back stood at
the foot of the bed, and a fairly serviceable broom was standing in one
corner. There was an iron stool or pot for excreta, giving, as he coul