In the train he met four other reporters, one of whom he knew. They were from the other morning newspapers, and before they reached Sing Sing he found that one of the party was the great Bailey of the Herald, one of the best-known reporters in New York, and another Henderson of the Tribune, whom he had heard spoken of as one of the finest writers on the press. It was a fresh feather in his cap to be sent to do the work that such men were doing. But could he compete with them, he wondered? In Sing Sing the five reporters walked down to the prison together and were shown into the warden’s office, and Dick’s idea of the power of the press was vastly expanded when he saw how they were treated. The warden, the man in charge of all that great prison with its thousands of prisoners, whose word was law to scores of keepers, could not do enough for them. Did they smoke? A box of Havana cigars was passed about. Would they eat a bite of lunch? Just a taste of chicken salad and a little cold fruit? No? Then let him ring for a glass of wine, for they would have a hard day’s work. But that was precisely why they would not take the wine, for such reporters as the four Dick met, capable of doing the best work, do not drink wine because they have work before them. The warden took them into the cell corridors, which made Dick shudder, and showed them the cells of the men who had escaped. Everything was open to them; the prison books, showing the records of these men; even the dark cell where one of them had been kept in manacles for misconduct a few weeks before. Then he told them the story of the escape, and an intensely interesting story it was. “Three of the men are burglars under long sentences,” he said; “and the fourth is a five-year man for murder in the third degree. They are all old offenders and desperate characters. This morning they were taken as usual to their work in the quarries, guarded by two keepers armed with rifles. When the freight train came along, moving slowly through the cut under the bridges, these four men threw down their tools and ran for one of the bridges. The guards fired, but missed them; and the men dropped from the bridge to the tender behind the engine. In an instant they were in the cab, and with cocked revolvers in their hands they ordered the engineer and fireman to jump off. We do not know how they got the revolvers. The railroad men were compelled to obey, and as soon as the convicts were alone on the engine they uncoupled it from the train and pulled open the throttle.