Robert Barr

“ And then the master noticed that his little, crying, curly-headed girl stood in a line between him and the escaping convict.
As a general thing Flint was an unerring shot; but now his hand trembled as he fired over his little girl's head six times, and then threw the empty revolver on the ground. Every time he fired, the rapidly disappearing negro swung the lantern over his head.
Flint shouted to the sleeping guards on the towers:
"Why don't you fire? Fire at him with the shot-gun." Flint clinched his teeth and awaited the result. ”

“ At this moment the conductor with a lantern hanging from his elbow, and a brakeman, clambered up from the track into the convict camp. The conductor was a jovial fellow who knew Flint.
"Hullo," he said, "what's this you've been doing to us? Been trying to smash up the night express? Say, the whole side of a mountain seems to have come down over the track."
"Well," said Flint, gruffly, "you may be mighty glad you didn't get your train smashed up in it. ”

“ The convict settlement on the spur of the mountain was invisible from the railway track, but the convicts were there because the railway was there. They were hired out to the railway company by the State Government, and as the train dashed by, sometimes the passengers were shocked to see, standing close in by the cliffs beside the tracks, twenty or thirty black men in convict garments, some with ball and chain attached to their ankles. And then, as the train flashed on, white men with rifles on their shoulders were seen guarding the workers on the railway. ”

“ The rifle sends one pellet of death, the shot-gun sends a dozen leaden messengers, each shrieking for a life.
Three men on the towers fired almost simultaneously from the shot-guns, whose scattering fire raked and tore through the bushes. ”

“ But a man who has charge of a hundred desperate convicts is apt to lose that softness of demeanor which commends itself to children. The midnight express, he knew, was a great sight to see on a dark night The train appeared with its long row of lights from out a tunnel, and passing by the convict settlement, disappeared among the trees and through another tunnel. It came in sight again on the other side of the valley, its long line of lights appearing to crawl slowly around the mountain, while the roar of the train mingled with the roar of the torrent below. ”

“ The usual result of an attempt to escape was that a week or ten days after the leap over the barrier a gaunt, starved man came out of the wilderness and gave himself up at the first place where he could get something to eat Often he failed in scaling the mountain and returned after a few days to the camp itself. ”