On a lovely evening some thirty years ago there was a jolly wedding at the home of a young Irish girl in a Western city. Tom Evans, the groom, a big-hearted, jovial fellow, was deeply in love with the girl of his choice. He was earning good wages and he intended to take good care of his wife.

It was midnight, and the streets were flooded with brilliant moonlight when Evans started to take his bride from her home to his, accompanied on the way by Jim Maguire, Larry Flannigan, and Ned Foster, three of the wedding guests. They were not carriage folks and were walking to the street-car when Jim Maguire, who had not been averse to the exhilarating liquids in hospitable circulation at the wedding feast, became unduly hilarious and disported himself with song and dance along the sidewalk—a diversion in which the others took no part. This hilarity was summarily interrupted by a policeman, who attempted to arrest the young man for disorderly[Pg 182] conduct, a proceeding vigorously resisted by Maguire.

This was the beginning of an affray in which the policeman was killed, and the whole party were arrested and taken into custody. As the policeman was well known, one of the most popular men on the force, naturally public indignation ran high and the feeling against his slayers was bitter and violent.

Tom Evans and Jim Maguire were held for murder, while Larry Flannigan, a boy of seventeen, and Ned Foster, as participants in the affair, were charged with manslaughter. The men were given fair trials—separate trials, I believe—in different courts, but it was impossible to get at the facts of the case, as there were no actual witnesses outside of those directly affected by the outcome; while each lawyer for the defence did his best to clear his own client from direct responsibility for the death of the policeman, regardless of the deserts of the others under accusation.

And so it came to pass that Jim Maguire and Tom Evans were "sent up" for life, while the bride of an hour returned to her father\'s house and in the course of time became the bride of another. Larry Flannigan was sentenced to[Pg 183] fourteen years\' imprisonment. Ned Foster, having served a shorter sentence, was released previous to my acquaintance with the others.

Some five years later one of the prison officers interested in Jim Maguire asked me to interview the man. Maguire was a tall, muscular fellow, restive under confinement as a hound in leash; nervous, too, and with abounding vitality ready at a moment\'s notice again to break out in song and dance if only the chance were given. This very overcharge of high animal spirits, excited by the wedding festivities, was the starting-point of all the tragedy. No doubt, too, in his make-up there were corresponding elements of recklessness and defiance.

Our first interview was the beginning of an acquaintance resulting in an interchange of letters; but it was not until a year afterward that in a long conversation Maguire gave me an account of his part in the midnight street encounter. Admitting disorderly conduct and resistance against the officer, he claimed that it was resistance only and not a counter attack; stating that the struggle between the two continued until the officer had the upper hand and then continued beating him into subjection so vigorously that Maguire[Pg 184] called for help and was rescued from the hands of the officer by "one of the other boys." He did not say which one nor further implicate any one.

"Ask the other boys," he said. "Larry didn\'t have anything to do with the killing, but he saw the whole thing. Get Larry to tell the story," he urged.

And so I was introduced to Larry. He was altogether of another type from Maguire. I hardly knew whether he wore the convict stripes or broadcloth when I was looking into that face, so sunny, so kindly, so frank. After all these years I can never think of Larry without a glow in my heart. He alone, of all my prisoners, appeared to have no consciousness of degradation, of being a convict; but met me simply and naturally as if we had been introduced at a picnic.

I told him of my interview with Jim Maguire and his immediate comment was: "Jim ought not to be here; he resisted arrest but he did not kill the officer; he\'s here for life and it\'s wrong, it\'s terrible. I hope you will do something for Jim."

"But what of yourself?" I asked; "you seem to have been outside of the affair altogether. I think I\'d better do something for you."

"Oh, no!" he protested, "you can get one[Pg 185] man out easier than two. I want to see Jim out, and I don\'t want to stand in his way. You know I am innocent, and all my friends believe me innocent, and I\'m young and well and can stand my sentence; it will be less than ten years with good time off. My record is perfect and I shall get along all right. But Jim is here for life."

I felt as if I were dreaming. I knew it would be a simple matter to obtain release for Larry, who had already been there six years, but no, the boy would not consider that, would not even discuss it. His thought was all for Jim, and he was unconscious of self-sacrifice. He simply set aside what seemed to him the lesser good in order to secure the greater.

"Did you ever make a full statement in court?" I asked.

"No. We were only allowed to answer direct questions in the examinations. None of us were given a chance to tell the straight story."

"So the straight story never came out at any of the trials?"

"No."

Thinking it high time that the facts of a case in which two men were suffering imprisonment for life should be ascertained and put on record [Pg 186]somewhere, it then remained for me to interview Evans, and to see how nearly the statements of the three men agreed, each given to me in private six years after the occurrence of the event.

Tom Evans—I see him now clearly as if it were but yesterday—a thick-set, burly figure with an intelligent face of good lines and strong character; a man of force who from his beginning as brakesman might have worked his way up to superintending a railroad, had the plan of his destiny been different.

I told him frankly that I had asked to see him in the interest of the other two, and that what I wanted first of all was to get the facts of the case, for the tragedy was still a "case" to me.

"And you want me to tell the story?" I felt the vibration of restrained emotion in the man from the first as he pictured the drama enacted in that midnight moonlight.

"I had just been married and we were going to my home. The streets were light as day. Jim was singing and dancing, when the policeman seized him. I saw there was going to be a fight and I made up my mind to keep out of it; for when I let my temper go it gets away with me. So I stood back with my girl. Jim called for[Pg 187] help but I stood back till I really believed Jim might be killed. I couldn\'t stand by and see a friend beaten to death, or take any chance of that. And so I broke into the fight. I got hold of the policeman\'s club and began to beat the policeman. I am a strong man and I can strike a powerful blow."

Here Evans paused, and there was silence between us until he said with a change of tone and expression:

"It was Larry who came to the help of the policeman and got the club away from me. It\'s Larry that ought to be out. Jim made the trouble and I killed the policeman, but Larry is wholly innocent. He is the one I want to see out."

At last we were down to bed-rock; there was no doubt now of the facts which the clumsy machinery of the courts had failed to reach.

I assured Evans that I would gladly do what I could for Larry, and then and there Evans and I joined hands to help "the other boys." I realized something of the sacrifice involved when I asked Evans if he was willing to make a sworn statement in the presence of the warden of the facts he had given me. What a touchstone of the man\'s nature! But he was following the lead[Pg 188] of truth and justice and there was no turning back.

We all felt that it was a serious transaction in the warden\'s office next day when Evans came in and, after a little quiet conversation with the warden, made and signed a statement to the effect that he, and he only, struck the blows that killed the policeman, and with hand on the Bible made oath to the truth of the statement, which was then signed, as witnesses, by the warden and a notary.

As Evans left the office the warden said to me: "Something ought to be done for that man also when the other boys are out."

I knew that in securing this confession I had committed myself to all the necessary steps involved before the prison doors could be opened to Maguire and Larry. And in my heart I was already pledged to befriend the man who, with unflinching courage, had imperilled his own chances of liberation in favor of the others; for I was now beginning to regard Evans as the central figure in the tragedy.

It is no brief nor simple matter to obtain the release of a man convicted of murder by the court and sentenced to life imprisonment unless one[Pg 189] has political influence strong enough to override all obstacles. Almost endless are the delays likely to occur and the details to be worked out before one has in hand all the threads necessary to be woven into the fabric of a petition for executive clemency.

In order to come directly in touch with the families of Larry and Maguire, and with the competent lawyer already enlisted in their service and now in possession of the statement of Evans, I went to the city where the crime was committed. The very saddest face that I had seen in connection with this affair was the face of Maguire\'s widowed mother. She was such a little woman, with spirit too crushed and broken by poverty and the fate of her son to revive even at the hope of his release. It was only the ghost of a smile with which she greeted me; but when we parted her gratitude called down the blessings of all the saints in the calendar to follow me all my days.

Larry\'s people I found much the same sort as he, cheerful, generous, bravely meeting their share of the hard luck that had befallen him, apparently cherishing the treasure of his innocence more than resenting the injustice, but most grateful[Pg 190] for any assistance toward his liberation. The lawyer who had interviewed Larry and Maguire at the penitentiary expressed amazement at what he called "the unbelievable unselfishness" of Larry. "I did not suppose it possible to find that spirit anywhere, last of all in a prison," he said. Larry had consented to be included on the petition drawn up for Maguire only when convinced that it would not impair Maguire\'s chances.

When I left the place the lines appeared to be well laid for the smooth running of our plans. I do not now remember what prevented the presentation of the petition for commutation of both sentences to twelve[11] years; but more than a year passed before the opportune time seemed to be at hand.

During this interval Evans was by no means living always in disinterested plans for the benefit of the others. The burden of his own fate hung heavily over him and no one in the prison was more athirst for freedom than he. In books from the prison library he found some diversion, and when tired of fiction he turned to philosophy, seeking to apply its reasoning to his own hard[Pg 191] lot; again, he sought in the poets some expression and interpretation of his own feelings. It was in the ever welcome letters that he found most actual pleasure, but he encountered difficulties in writing replies satisfactory to himself. In a letter now before me he says:

"I only wish that I could write as I feel, then indeed would you receive a gem; but I can\'t, more\'s the pity. But I can peruse and cherish your letters, and if I dare I would ask you to write oftener. Just think, the idea strikes me that I am writing to an authorous, me that never could spell a little bit. But the authorous is my friend, is she not, and will overlook this my defect. I have done the best I could to write a nice letter and I hope it will please you, but, in the words of Byron,
"\'What is writ is writ:
Would it were worthier. But I am not now
That which I have been, and my visions flit
Less palpably before me, and the glow
Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering faint and low.\'

"With the last line of your letter I close, \'wri............