Part 30 (2/2)

Billy Byrne shook hie of Barbara, daughter of Anthony Harding, the multimillionaire, to William Mallory will take place on the twenty-fifth of June

The article was dated New York There was h It is true that he had urged her to marry Mallory; but now, in his lonesoh she had been untrue to hihts, ”the jury's reached a verdict”

The judge was e from his chambers as Billy was led into the courtroom Presently the jury filed in and took their seats The foreman handed the clerk a bit of paper Even before it was read Billy knew that he had been found guilty He did not care any longer, so he told hiallows There was nothing more in life for him noay He wanted to die But instead he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the penitentiary at Joliet

This was infinitely worse than death Billy Byrne was appalled at the thought of rerim stone walls of a prison

Oncehatred of the law and all that pertained to it He would like to close his steel fingers about the fat neck of the red-faced judge The s jurymen roused within hihed aloud

A bailiff rapped for order One of the juryhbor and whispered ”A hardened criminal,” he said ”Society will be safer when he is behind the bars”

The next day they took Billy aboard a train bound for Joliet He was handcuffed to a deputy sheriff Billy was cal volcano of hate

In a certain very beautiful ho lady, comfortably backed by downy pillows, sat in her bed and alternated her attention between coffee and rolls, and aclaiuid attention: CHICAGO MURDERER GIVEN LIFE SENTENCE Of late Chicago had aroused in Barbara Harding a greater proportion of interest than ever it had in the past, and so it was that she now permitted her eyes to wander casually down the printed column

Murderer of harht to justice

The notorious West Side rowdy, ”Billy” Byrne, apprehended after itive fro sat stony-eyed and cold for what seemed many minutes

Then with a stifled sob she turned and buried her face in the pillows

The train bearing Billy Byrne and the deputy sheriff toward Joliet had covered perhaps half the distance between Chicago and Billy's permanent destination when it occurred to the deputy sheriff that he should like to go into the sar

Now, from the moment that he had been sentenced Billy Byrne's ht--escape He knew that there probably would be not the slightest chance for escape; but nevertheless the idea was always upper revolted, not alone against the injustice which had sent hi years of awful monotony which lay ahead of him

He could not endure the his prisoner ahead of him, started for the smoker It o cars ahead The train was vestibuled The first platforhtly enclosed; but at the second Billy saw that a careless porter had left one of the doors open The train was slowing down for so, perhaps, twenty miles an hour

Billy was the first upon the platform He was the first to see the open door It s--a chance to escape, or, death Even the latter was to be preferred to life imprisonment

Billy did not hesitate an instant Even before the deputy sheriff realized that the door was open, his prisoner had leaped frouard after him

CHAPTER II THE ESCAPE

BYRNE had no time to pick any particular spot to juht have been directly over a picket fence, or a bottomless pit--he did not know Nor did he care

As it happened he was over neither The platfor across a culvert at the instant Beneath the culvert was a sli unhared the deputy sheriff to his knees, and before that frightened and astonished officer of the law could gather his wits together he had been relieved of his revolver and found hi into its cold and business-like muzzle