That he was able to visit us was due to his being a "runner," as those prisoners are termed who are assigned to carrying messages and doing odd jobs in the ranges. He leaned against the bars and spoke manfully and pungently, with touches of gay humor now and then; advised us to our conduct--what to do and what to avoid; and when he noticed the little gray pamphlet, said scornfully, "Don't muss up your ideas with that! There's a hundred rules there, and every one of 'em is broken every day. Those rules are for show; what happens to you depends on who the guard is, and how he happens to be feeling. You can go as far as you like sometimes, and other times you'll get hauled up if you turn your head sideways. The screw" (guard) "on this range is decent; he won't crowd you too much. Keep quiet, and do what they tell you, and the odds are you'll get by all right. Of course, if some fellow gets a grudge against you, he's liable to hammer you like hell; there are some prisoners here that get on the wrong side of a screw, and--well, it goes hard with 'em! But if you're a little careful, I guess you'll get through all right. "I've read all about your case in the papers, and I know you oughtn't to be here; and Bill" (the Warden) "likely knows it too, and as folks on the outside are on the watch for what happens to you, he'll think twice how he treats you. Bill is a cunning one; he keeps his ear to the ground; when he sees that the reform people are going to put something across, he backs it up, and gives out that he suggested it himself; but up to a year or two ago, he did the worst sort of things to the men; even in his early reports and addresses he advocated treatment that he'd never dare stand for now--except on the quiet! He gets himself written up in the local papers here as the model warden--warm-hearted and broad-minded, and all that flap-doodle! But if he had his way, you'd think you were back in the dark ages in this penitentiary. Wickersham threw a bit of a scare into him a couple of years back; and there have been others; but most of the inspectors that are sent here stand in with him; he gives them good feeds in his house, and takes them out in his auto, and fills 'em up with soft talk--about 'his boys,' and his fatherly interest in 'em, and all that--but he keeps the dark cells and the rest of the dirty work out of their sight, and of course none of the men dares say anything to 'em--it would be all day with them if they did--as soon as the inspector turned his back. That's what gets the men's goat--that he puts up such a humane front, and all the while hammers them on the sly. They'd prefer being told at the start they were going to get hell, and then getting it; but it goes against their grain to get it, and meantime have folks outside believe they're in a gentlemen's country club!"