One
time when I was about 14 years old, Elmer Ackley and I invited two
young guards to our camp in the woods to come for lunch. These
fellows worked on the night watch and were off duty in the daytime.
At our camp "Pinch Gut Hollow" we had prepared clam chowder
and a Mulligan stew. While eating lunch, my dog Brownie
began to bark vigorously and ran out into the woods. He was acting
rather unusual so I followed him about 100 yards to a sort of draw.
He kept barking, but I could not see anything so I went back,
concluding that he had heard some animal but it was out of sight.
About
ten minutes later we saw a young man hurrying toward our camp. He
was apparently very excited. He was a young Portugese named Tony
Nunes, who had recently come to America from Portugal and could not
speak much English. He said, "Dos pris; He's run away!!
Tony
knew that we were having two guards for lunch, for we had gone to
the dairy where he worked to get milk for the clam chowder. He and
his uncle, while eating lunch, saw two men in prison clothes running
past their house. Tony ran up the hill to our camp to tell the
guards, and his uncle, Joaquin Simas, hitched up the wagon and
started for the prison to spread the alarm. The two guards decided to
pursue the men, although they did not have guns with them, and Elmer
and I took their heavy coats and hurried back to the prison gates to
spread the alarm. As we reached the prison gates, Joaquin drove up at
a gallop and excitedly yelling "Two -Two! " The guards knew
this meant runaway prisoners.
After
a man hunt of several hours, a guard named Pat Hyland, an Irishman
with quite a brogue, spotted the two men in a large oak tree near
Scheutzen's Park (now California Park.) He raised his rifle and
shouted, "Come down, ye barstards, I've got me bead and me rest
on ye."
Author:
William J. Duffy, Jr.