When the iron doors shut behind us at the Stillwater prison I submitted to the prison discipline with the same unquestioning obedience that I had exacted during my military service, and Jim and Bob, I think, did the same.
For ten years and a half after our arrival, Warden Reed remained. The first three years there was a popular idea that such desperate men as the Youngers would not stay long behind prison walls, and that especial watchfulness must be exercised in our case. Accordingly the three of us were put at work making buckets and tubs, with Ben Cayou over us as a special guard, when in our dreams we had been traveling to South America on Ben Butler’s money.
Then we were put in the thresher factory. I made the sieves, while Jim sewed the belts, and Bob made the straw-carriers and elevators.
The latter part of the Reed regime I was in the storeroom.
Jan. 25, 1884, when we had been in the prison something over seven years, the main prison building was destroyed by fire at night. George P. Dodd, who was then connected with the prison, while his wife was matron, and who still lives in Buffalo, Minn., said of our behavior that night:
“I was obliged to take the female convicts from their cells and place them in a small room that could not be locked. The Youngers were passing and Cole asked if they could be of any service. I said: ‘Yes, Cole. Will you three boys take care of Mrs. Dodd and the women?’ Cole answered: ‘Yes, we will, and if you ever had any confidence in us place it in us now.’ I told him I had the utmost confidence and I slipped a pistol to Cole as I had two. Jim, I think, had an ax handle and Bob a little pinch bar. The boys stood before the door of the little room for hours and even took the blankets they had brought with them from their cells and gave them to the women to try and keep them comfortable as it was very cold. When I could take charge of the women and the boys were relieved, Cole returned my revolver.”
Next morning Warden Reed was flooded with telegrams and newspaper sensations: “Keep close watch of the Youngers;” “Did the Youngers escape?” “Plot to free the Youngers,” and that sort of thing.
The warden came to his chief deputy, Abe Hall, and suggested that we be put in irons, not that he had any fear on our account, but for the effect on the public.