has wrung from grudging fortune the renown of Madelia to-day; for
throughout the length and breadth of the land, and wherever the pulsations
of the electric message-bearer—the nervous system of civilization—was
felt, the bosom of generous sentiment swelled with approbation, gratitude,
and pride, when the tale of the cool dash and unselfish bravery of those
seven Madelians was told. The united voices and hearts of the whole nation
swell with gratitude and laudations for Madelia’s sturdy heroism.
All day Friday and all the night previous, there was a constant and
ever-changing stream of visitors passing through the rooms occupied by
Madelia’s fated captives. One could but speculate with wonder upon the
source of such an inexhuastible human stream.
Not an inconsiderable moiety of the great total of visitors was of the
gentler sex, and to one watching with interest the great bandits’ matinee
and evening receptions, the changing expressions upon the eager, expectant
and occasionally indignant countenances of visitors, was of singular
interest. A strong, energetic man would enter with knitted brow, and
stern, unrelenting features, who would be followed by a timid,
half-fearful, half-loathing woman’s face. Then there were angry faces,
curious faces, bold, proud faces—faces exhibiting every phase of human
passion and human temperament—but they had scarcely passed the threshhold
of either prison chamber wherein lay the objects of all-absorbing
curiosity, when lo! presto! a metamorphose as sudden as it was complete,
and as radical as it was rapid, had taken place. Doubt, wonder, and
astonishment would grow into