Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 124: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

By ELLIOT BALESTIER west from the town of Brattleboro, Ver- mont, you will come, over the corru- gated surface of the Green Mountain State, to a point where the hills, dropping away with startling abruptness, form the beauti- ful valley of the West River—a wide, shal- low, turbulent tributary of the Connecticut, little more than an exaggerated brook at some seasons, at others a roaring torrent. Another mile or two twisting downward at an angle of approximately forty-five de- grees will bring you to the little village of Newfane, snuggling comfortably at the foot of the overshadowing mountains, sleepy and peaceful, alike in the shade of its maples and huge umbrella elms and under its four months’ shroud of snow. The quaint old houses, square and green- shuttered, straggle along its single wide street, set deep in their “ front yards ” that in summer are aflame with all the colors of the hollyhock, marigold, fuchsia, dahlia, petunia, and a dozen other old-fashioned flowers, whose very names are almost un- known to this generation. Aside from its picturesque beauty, the |: you drive twelve miles north-north- only claim of the little hamlet to the notice of the great world outside the valley is the fact that it is a county-seat, and as such has its name printed on the maps in full-faced type. For the same reason the county jail is there. It is a grim gray structure of na- tive granite, neither large nor imposing, but with a claim to distinction nevertheless, for it houses a mystery—The Prisoner. For over a score of years he has dwelt there, wearing the prison garb, eating the prison food, by day humbly performing the tasks set for him by the warden, by night sleeping without complaint upon the hard cot in his narrow cell. He is a life prisoner, yet, so far as is known, no jury convicted him of crime; no judge pronounced his sentence; neither the state nor county authorities have any offi- cial knowledge of his existence; even the records of the jail itself are silent concern- ing him. The warden who first received him is dead these many years, and his suc- cessors have accepted The Prisoner, as a legacy from the past, not only because of the prestige his presence gives the jail, but: on account, also, of his own personality, for 750 Conmmicoooks (C@