by the midnight train for San Francisco
to-morrow, but must be content to see you as much of the
day as you can spare us, and hope for a longer visit on your
return. We dine at four: may I not send the carriage for you
as early as two o'clock?

"Your loving friend,

"RUTH DENHAM."

I had my aunt's permission to leave her, and was ready at the
appointed hour to find the carriage there to the minute; and a very
comfortable, easy conveyance it proved over one of the worst roads I
ever traveled on.

The prison was about a mile from the outskirts of the straggling town,
which boasted two or three fine State buildings, in strong contrast
with its scattering and mostly mean and shambling dwellings. Some
hot springs had been discovered near the site, and over them had been
erected a wooden hotel and baths of the simplest order of architecture
and on the barest possible plan of ornament or comfort. Just beyond
this edifice was the prison, situated at the rise of one hill and
under the shadow of another and more considerable one. It was built of
a softish, light-colored stone dug from a neighboring quarry, as the
driver told me, and looking even at a cursory glance too destructible
and crumbling to secure such desperate and determined inmates.

"They used to keep 'em in a sort o' wooden shed," said my driver,
alluding to the prisoners, "until they got this shebang fixed up.
Pretty smart lot of chaps they were, for they built it themselves
mostly, and made good time on it, too."

It was surrounded by a high wooden fence, within which a stone wall of
the same material as the building was in course of construction.

"If it wasn't Sunday," said my companion as we drove through the
guarded gate, "you could see 'em at work, for they're putting up their
defences, and doing it first-rate, too."

I had only time for a glance at the inside of the enclosure. We were
already at the principal entrance, which was a wide door opening into
a hall, with a staircase leading up to the second floor. On the right
hand was a strongly-grated iron door opening into the main corridor
between the cells: the other side seemed to be devoted to offices and
quarters for the guards. I saw knots of men about, but only the two
at the entrance appeared to be armed, and they had that lounging, easy
air, that belongs to security and the absence of thought. It was in
every respect opposite to my preconceived idea of a penitentiary,