Archive for November, 2005

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005

Article marketing involves link building in order to direct part of the internet traffic to your website. If a question was raised as to what is the most effective way to create web links, it will always go back to the matter of quality articles the links are attached to. In order to get readers to click to your website there are some important points you should consider: 1. Create well-written and informative articles. Once an article is appreciated, they can get re-posted to other websites, creating another avenue for link building. 2. Use related keywords within the article at an optimized level in order to be picked up by the SEO system. However, caution should also be applied with the use of keywords. A well-written article contains keywords that are strategically placed within its contents. By strategic, keyword placements and its redundancy will not disrupt the thought of the reader while in the process of reading the article. 3. Place at least three links inside the article for different link destinations. One link may be for a blog website, another is for a page in your home website and the third link is for the home website. This strategy ensures the visitor will stay longer within your web area, since the other two links will re-directed back to your home page. 4. The resource box should be well-utilized. Your article will get the reader interested to know more about your product. The resource box will tell what and where the additional information can be found and the link to your company’s home website should be placed here. 5. If your article has an author’s block, place another back link here to your websites homepage. Another connection will again be useful for link building strategy. Article marketing has been proven to be the best method of generating links that will direct web browsers to a particular website. The creation of as many well-written articles as possible then is the key to effectively win over the web browsers into visiting your site. As an added aide, there are numerous article submission directories who will promote these articles to other websites thus multiplying the number of links and volume of internet traffic that will be directed to your home page. Hence the challenge to create interesting and useful articles is always instilled in you. Like what you read? Listen. I’ve compiled a report, Three-Step Article Marketing Secret Blueprint, specially for my valued visitors (You). You won’t get this guide anywhere else. Download the Three-Step Article Marketing Secret Blueprint Report (it’s free!) at .AutoSubmitArticleMachine.com NOW!

But you can’t just put up a link that says “free newsletter”. No one cares! You need to carefully craft an opt-in box that works like a big net, catching the exact type of “fish” you want as your ideal clients and customers. Also remember, don’t hide your box at the bottom of your web pages. Right now, most testing shows that the best place for your opt-in box is the upper right corner… loud and proud! Here are six simple things you should have in your opt-in box that will help you get more signups than ever before. 1) An Attention-Getting HEADLINE Remember that online readers SKIM copy - they don’t read it word for word. So the headline in your opt-in box may be the ONLY thing they read, which determines whether they sign up or not. So don’t waste this space saying something like “Free Newsletter” or even worse… “Sign up for our mailing list.” Ugh! Instead, tell me the MOST exciting thing your ezine will give me! Examples: “Are You Ready to Blast Off Your SALES This Year?” “FINALLY: Learn How to Keep That Weight Off For Good” “Insider Secrets to Writing Novels for Big Bucks” 2) A Raving Description of Your Ezine Work hard at putting together a description of your ezine that gets prospects excited to sign up! Remember they’re tuned into station WIIFM (”What’s In It For ME?”). Tell them what your information is going to DO for them as well as everything they GET. Examples: How-to articles, quick and easy tips, free resources, insider secrets. Aim for your description to be between 15 and 30 words. 3) A Field to Enter Their FIRST NAME. Getting people’s names along with their e-mails allows you to personalize your ezine for them. For example, if I was on your list, your e-mail would come to me saying, “Dear Ali…” The subject line could even say, “Ali, here’s your free tip”. Why do you want to do this? Studies prove that having the recipient’s name in the subject line of your e-mails can increase your open rates by 60%! The problem is, many people value their privacy and are hesitant to give you their full name. For this reason, just ask for their FIRST name. It’s been proven that you’ll get MORE names from people if you only ask for the first name. (And their first name is generally all you’ll need anyway.) 4) A Field to Enter Their Primary EMAIL ADDRESS. Many people have a backup or personal e-mail address that they use just for receiving online newsletters and promotions. The problem is they are often from free e-mail services like Yahoo or Hotmail. These services filter e-mail like crazy, and their mailboxes fill up quickly, so there’s a good chance your e-mails won’t even reach these recipients. The solution is, simply ask for their primary e-mail. It’s amazing, but simply ASKING them to enter their primary e-mail will get you more quality e-mails on your list! (You’ll also get less bounce-backs from undeliverable e-mails. If you get too many of those, it raises a red flag to some spam filter programs.) 5) A BUTTON That Says “Subscribe” or “Sign Me Up Now” Make it very clear what they should click on to activate their subscription once they type in their name and email. Don’t use something confusing like a link that says “submit form”. 6) Your PRIVACY POLICY, right then and there. Everyone’s scared to receive more spam these days, so put your prospects at ease. Don’t make them wonder what you’re going to do with their e-mail addresses. State right next to or below your opt-in form what your policy is. Mine is, “We will never sell, rent, trade, or share your e-mail with any other organization.” (Feel free to use that yourself.) DON’T make people click on a link to read your privacy policy - it looks like you have something to hide. In fact, in some U.S. states, it’s now required that you state your privacy policy right at the point of opt-in, so it’s a good idea no matter where you do business. Want to See a Sample of This in Action? If you’d like to see many of these components in action, see my pop-under box at .ezinequeen.com/popup.htm. And if you’d like MORE step-by-step instructions on how to get more signups at your website (and beyond) and build your list bigger than ever before, see my SPECIAL REPORT: “101 Simple, FREE and Low-Cost Ways to Quickly Build a Massive EMAIL LIST”, which you can learn more about here. For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website: - .perfect-ghost-writer.com .articlewriting.infozabout.com

Everyone knows the important link between articles and web businesses. Writing article has proven to be a major contributor in driving traffic to one’s website. By writing and including some good articles in your website, there is a good opportunity that your site may get a higher ranking on search engines. And with higher ranking, traffic flow to your site will definitely increase, and so will your profits. Therefore this potential income generating method should never be neglected. But the question lies in how to write a successful article? Most people are able to write simple articles but to write a good and successful one requires skills. A well written article will attract more readers and entice them to visit your site more often; hungry for information. Here, I will share some secrets specially to help you create good articles which will pump up your website traffic flow. In short, I will separate into two categories. First is content structure. Second is layout structure. Content Structure 1. Article Content Good article content is of utmost importance. You must provide good, accurate and updated information. In addition, try to include interesting contents so that visitors will be entertained when reading them. Also, make sure your articles are well written with no grammatical or spelling errors. Ensure that you perform spell or grammar check before publishing. Try to include testimonials, facts and statistics whenever possible. This will help to build up your trust and reputation with your readers. 2. Keywords Your article must always be centered on the keywords and keyword phrases. In doing so, your site may be able to get a higher page ranking by the various search engines when visitors make a search using specific keywords. Make sure the keywords you used are related to your site. Try using keywords tools which are readily available on the internet. From there, you will get an idea of which good keywords to make use of in your articles. 3. Density of keywords As a guide, you should try to maintain at least ten to fifteen percent of keyword density. Too low a figure may result in search engines not finding your site. However, too high a figure may render the search engine to ignore your site. Therefore, you should try to strike a balance that is optimal. 4. Articles link Last but not least is articles link. Do not forget to include your web link if you are submitting your articles to various article forums such as ozone article. Make sure you include it so that visitor’s eager to know more information is able to make a visit to your site. Layout Structure 1. Use attention-catching article title or header In doing so, people will be entice to read more into what you are writing. Do remember that half the battle is won if you catch the attention of your readers. 2. Use short paragraphs Try to use short paragraph within your articles. Do not just lump everything into one long paragraph. It makes the article looks dull, boring and untidy, and some people will not have the patience to read all in one go. Most readers will prefer short paragraphs for easier reading and less confusion. .article-writing-secret.com

Being already able to set your brain to maximum reception mode, and follow these 3 steps, you will set yourself apart from your competition. Ideally, give yourself some time to ready your mind for your writing task, for it is going to be a greatly unique experience. Some writers have even reported of finding a great amount of emotional unburdening through these treasured sittings! Usually, there is a great amount of excitement, as each page you write comes out with a unique range of emotional experience and as promised earlier, a great deal of unearthing of the inner faculties of your wide and unique imprints of the past. RULE#1 In proprioceptive writing, you write what you hear by imagining your thoughts as you would be hearing them, and writing them just the way you think them - as though your mind is speaking to you directly. This can pose a bit of a problem initially, as we are normally not used to hearing our own minds, but you will be responsive to this and turn your “vocal thoughts” into words. So, to watch out here, you should be WRITING WHAT YOU HEAR, and already you are being understood by this very different way of psychological writing. So, here you are not going to worry about punctuation, grammar or spelling, but give your words shape and meaning. Treat confusion as a way of recurring thought, and put down the phrases that come to your mind first. For example, “emotions are like a flurry of cotton masses”, “I don’t know where the hell this is going to lead me!”. Keep formulating shapes in your head and forget about being proper or right. Just be as honest to your real thoughts and emotions as you can, giving color, shape and form to your rush of thoughts. RULE#2 There is only one thing to keep in mind—really, really listen to your thoughts. Make no attempt to edit, bawdlerise, censor, judge or chop off any of the thoughts you get. You are not going to direct or control them. For once let your uncensored mind do all the talking and let it flow! RULE#3 Now, as you go on with the flow of your creative writing, be ready to pop up the proprioceptive question. When you are giving form to your vocal thoughts, often enough, you will have a particular word or phrase coming to you, that hits you and strongly affects you. Most likely, as an example, words with the most undefined emotional weight will pose as the element of most importance. When your mind produces this questioning, feed its query and underline that word. Come back to it later when you get an instant rush of thoughts

we buy fashion jewelry at high price for two main reasons,one is for fashion,one is our truly love for some jewelry.wholesale jewelry-buy the antique fashion jewelry with unique The purpose of adornment was originally to beautify ourselves, and again became a attribute of status. The adeptness to allow attenuate and big-ticket gems and metals was displayed about by acid them on one’s person. “Look at me: I am richer than you!” As architecture became more important, the acclaimed adornment houses and designers such as Faberg? Tiffany and Cartier were built-in from their altered architecture capabilities, but as the 20th aeon came along, architecture became accessory to ambience as abounding precious stones as accessible in a section to access its absolute raw actual amount as against to its perceived value. It is ambiguous if today’s adornment will anytime become as approved afterwards as that of the abundant appearance houses and wholesale jewelry supply, and now is the time to acquirement aged adornment for investment because, as it is airtight up and placed in collections, there appears little able of demography its place. There is still a lot of aged adornment to be begin in aged shops, and even on eBay you will see abounding accomplished pieces affairs at affordable prices. It is still worn, of course, although yesterday’s accomplished pieces do not consistently fit with today’s clothes fashions. Nevertheless, as aftertaste is replaced by price, this is beneath important a agency than it already was, and the canicule arise to be over if adornment was advised to accouterment accurate styles of accouterment and fabrics. Today, annihilation goes as continued as it is bright, bright and expensive. In abounding ways has abolished aftertaste and acute design. So, what should you be searching for if purchasing fashion jewelry- whether it is for investment or fashion? First analysis the agreement of the piece. True antiques are not symmetrical: they are hand-made and anniversary ancillary is hardly altered than the other. You can aswell acquaint a lot from the fastenings, because butt clasps are modern, as are column and blow and clip-back adornment fastenings (1930s at earliest). An aged will be bland to the feel, and accept no jaggy edges that bolt on your easily and clothing. Platinum and white gold were not acclimated until the 20th century, and beforehand 19th aeon adornment was fabricated of silver, although gold was used. Aswell accumulate in apperception that gemstone acid machines were not acclimated until the mid 19th century, so any avant-garde cut was not accessible until then, the continued baguette cut getting alien in the art deco and art nouveaux pieces of the 1920s. If you intend purchasing aged wholesale jewelry for investment, therefore, it will pay to apprentice about the subject. Either that or never acquirement a section until it has been arrested by an expert. Fashion, on the added hand, is a altered affair entirely. While absolute aged adornment prices can be set by the section itself, the amount of appearance adornment is abundantly set by trends rather than built-in value. Antique fashion jewelry play in the fashion of the world. to take expert advice prior buy it. it will be a good investment

Friday, November 18th, 2005

The first thoughts when sending a letter of wedding congratulations to the happy couple is that it is a straightforward communication of your thoughts and best wishes

Thursday, November 17th, 2005

Because the internet is the primary tool people use to find information, offering an information product and promoting it online is truly an ideal way to build wealth. So think about this, if you have precisely the information someone needs, they will buy it. Now, you may be thinking that writing reports takes time, research and energy and that’s true, but we’re not talking about creating a 300 page book, this is about creating a small but comprehensive 10-20 page report, and the truth is …it makes money like nothing else! The reason it works so well is because you are giving people information they are interested in. People are always in need of how to do things themselves, how to resolve problems, how to find more time, how to save more money or how to feel better. If you can resolve these issues and others like it, you are in business. Small reports can also be used as valuable marketing tools. They can be given away as a free add-on bonus, product promotions or as an incentive for a newsletter or ezine sign-up. If you’re beginning to see the potential that small reports can give you with regard to profiting online, then keep reading for some essential tips on how to get started. 1. Find a Topic Think about problems people encounter every day. How-to or do-it-yourself books are very popular. For example, things like how to sell your own home, how to get into the stock market safely, how to buy a computer, etc. Create a small report that addresses a problem and then provide a realistic solution on how to resolve it. Don’t let your lack of experience or knowledge become a deterrent, you can always have your document written for you. Remember this is something you will do once and sell forever, the cost of having it written for you will pay for itself many times. 2. Get Ideas on What to Write Once you have a topic, you need to come up with ideas on what to write about. It helps to talk to others for ideas. This can be friends, relatives or business partners. Simply ask people what they would be most interested in knowing about regarding your specific topic. In addition to getting ideas from others include your own personal knowledge or personal experiences that might contribute to your information. For additional information pick up a book or two on the topic, collect ideas, visit topic related forums or set up an interview with an expert. 3. Get Organized You won’t get far if you are not organized. Getting organized means outlining the focus of your report and what the message is that you want to deliver. Next, create and order the categories you will be covering. Determine what research you will be doing and conduct it in an orderly fashion. 4. Create an Outline Don’t be so eager to begin writing that you don’t organize your thoughts. Begin by jotting down ideas and then organize them into a logical flow. Don’t think about writing perfectly at this point. Simply jot down ideas. As you begin to write your report you will easily be able to create a paragraph or two for each idea. 5. Have a Unique Approach Don’t worry about competition; many writers are in very competitive markets. What sets them apart is their unique approach or their angle? For example, how can you present your information in your own unique way? Perhaps you offer cheaper or faster solutions or perhaps you offer more personalized service. Stress your benefits and give your audience a reason to buy from you. They need to feel that you are their best source for whatever it is they are looking for. 6. Provide Quality Information Create a report that delivers quality. Your report may have a cost value but it should also have a worth value and it should be worth more than it costs. More simply put, always deliver value first. Don’t fill a report with information that can be found anywhere or is common knowledge. Deliver information that a reader can use. Personal tips, secrets or handy and unusual ways to do things are what benefits the reader. If you provide information that a reader can get anywhere or offer secrets that are not really secrets, your credibility will be tarnished and your refunds will be more than your sales. 7. Spread the Word Once you have created your report it’s time to spread the word. Here are several great ways to promote your report. They are all fairly easy to implement and are designed to generate lots of traffic for your report. - Your Ezine If you publish an ezine, promote your report to your subscriber list on a periodic basis. - Forums Include a link to your report in your signature file on your favorite forums, and then every time you make a post it will include the link to your free report. - Your Website and/or Blog Display your free report on each page of your website or blog. You can also create a free report that you can use to encourage people to sign up for newsletter, ezine or opt-in list. If you have a blog, make occasional posts promoting your free report. - Your eBay Auctions Use a free report as an incentive to get visitors to bid on your eBay auctions. - Articles If you write articles, include a text link in your byline that directs your readers to your report. This is an excellent way to bring free traffic to your site and get your report in front of thousands of readers. - Your Email Signature File Whoever you send emails to, personal or business include a P.S. that contains a link to your report. - Your Social Networking pages Create profiles on your favorite social networking pages that include a link to your report. - Get Others to Help You Promote Create an affiliate program for your report and offer a percentage for each sale. This is a perfect way to encourage others to promote your report and increase sales tenfold. Don’t underestimate the income and marketing potential of creating small reports. But the best part is, you do the work once and reap the benefits forever. For more information on writing internet content visit the Homenotion Writer’s Corner and get free tips, guides and lessons on how you can easily create small reports, e-books or use them as creative marketing tools.

What are the most important things to know about the car transmission? A transmission is a device that every car has it. A car’s transmission enables the engine to provide a wide range of output speeds. Without it, you’d be limited to just one gear. There are 2 types of transmissions Automatic and Manual transmissions. Make sure to get some opinion to an experience mechanic to work on your car transmissions. A manual transmission keeps you tuned in to your car. Learn the basics of a manual transmission and explore transmission parts and the inner workings. If you have ever driven a car with an automatic transmission, then you know that there are two big differences between an automatic transmission and a manual transmission. Automatic transmission there is no clutch pedal in an automatic transmission car. There is no gear shift in an automatic transmission car. Once you put the transmission into drive, everything else is automatic. How much is the cost for a transmission repair? Well every car repair shop has a different price range it is approximately range from 2,000 to 4,000. When you need repairs, parts, replacement and more, come to Aurora Clutch and More. We offer great automatic & manual transmission, CV axle, timing belt services & more. The key difference between a manual and an automatic transmission is that the manual transmission locks and unlocks different sets of gears to the output shaft to achieve the various gear ratios. The automatic transmission plus its torque converter and a manual transmission with its clutch accomplish exactly the same thing, but they do it in totally different ways. To get the transmission into overdrive, lots of things have to be connected and disconnected by clutches and bands. The planet carrier gets connected to the torque converter housing by a clutch. The small sun gets disconnected from the turbine by a clutch so that it can freewheel. Over 35 years of experience mechanics at the Aurora clutch And More offer free clutch adjustments on vehicles with adjustable systems. Free test drive and diagnosis. For more info please visit .auroraclutchandmore.com to speak with the certified technician/mechanics. They are located at 8401 Aurora Avenue North Seattle, WA 98103 Or you can email them at infoclutchandmore.com for more details about the transmission repair. Author: Elmerante Acacio Article Resources .amazines.com

Tuesday, November 15th, 2005

If you are writing marketing articles, your primary intention should be to grab the attention of the reader and make them visit your website after reading the article. Now this is possible only if your article is so appealing and impressive that the visitor feels he or she will gain something more by visiting the author’s own website. How does one go about making the article appealing and impressive then? Here are some of the interesting expert tips I can give you (all are learnt from my own personal experience in writing marketing articles):- (i) Always write for a niche market, People who write marketing articles sometimes make the articles so simple that they seem too elementary. Though this may make your article understandable to a wider audience, you must realize that this wide audience is not what you are seeking. If you get thousand hits on your website everyday but less than twenty sales, what’s the point? Rather than that, wouldn’t you like hits per day, but more than fifty sales. That’s the entire point of writing the marketing article. Write for the people you are wishing to sell your product; and not to the general audience. Think as though you are speaking to a potential buyer of the product, and you will have a winner. Use some technical terms if possible. In short, get the point across through your article that you know your stuff. (ii) Write an expert author’s bio, Most marketing article writes ignore the author’s bio and just make a short drift of it when the time comes to upload the article. This is a very wrong way to go about things. Your entire article has spoken about the product; the author’s bio is the only place where you have a chance to speak about yourself. You must certainly use this opportunity to the hilt and put in your maximum in this short bio space. Write your experience in a line or two, tell them what you have which the others may not have. Also, add a picture. That’s important. It gives a fantastic personal touch for the reader to know who he or she is dealing with. (iii) Blend your keywords properly, It has been beaten to death already that keywords must be an important part of your article. But do not put on keywords in every sentence. That jars! If your article is about 400 words in length, four times is enough. If you use the keyword once for every 100 words, that’s more than sufficient. A keyword cluttered article will just turn the visitor off. And yes, make the keyword a part of your sentence, not the sentence a part of your keyword. (iv) Do not be hype much, Hyping is almost suicide in article marketing and also for the product it is trying to promote. If the visitor clicks the hyped website with great expectations, then there are more chances of dissatisfaction and botching up on a potential sale. Rather than hyping, you must just tell about the pros and cons of your product. Believe in the intelligence of the reader to discern what’s good and bad; don’t teach them like a kid. This way you will end up with more realistic hits on your site. There is so much to tell you about article marketing, but one article is not enough for that. For more free resources visit here:- .perfect-ghost-writer.com .articlemarketing.infozabout.com However, if you keep reading on, you are sure to pick some more good tips on the way, and also develop some of your own to write for me!

A GHOST’S WHISPER A board falling flat to the floor is thunder to the heart. And so it was that when prison guard Clyde Sollars heard a hard clap, he stiffened in fear. For a few seconds he listened, breathless. Sollars looked at his wristwatch, an anniversary gift from his wife. The hands showed almost four o’clock. He reached into the canvas bag he had carried into the prison from the main office across the street. Inside the tiny mailroom that was nothing more than a cubbyhole with shelves, wedged at the end of a short hallway, he sorted the day’s last letters. That noise, sharp and urgent, echoed in his head. The convict carpenters working with hammers and saws near the deputy warden’s office must have dropped a board. The day suddenly felt used and cold, like frost on a flower. Feeling a chill that he couldn’t understand, he worked faster. An hour earlier, Sollars waited outside the prison’s rock walls, across the street, while his wife Helen censored the last letters. She was the new matron in the Women’s Unit, a small stockade behind the main prison. They told her that if she worked with the mail superintendent for a few weeks she would know the prison better. Every morning she and another matron marched eleven of the thirteen female prisoners from their quarters to their jobs in prison offices outside the walls. Clyde felt lucky to see her during working hours. He was one of two mail and transportation officers, alternating with another guard on road trips to return parole violators to Deer Lodge. The most recent assignment had been to North Dakota. The other guard asked for it, hoping to visit relatives along the way. On this Thursday, April 16, 1959, Clyde Sollars might have been driving hundreds of miles to the east, free as a bird on the perpetual plains of eastern Montana. Instead he stacked mail into a bag, looked at his watch, and decided that before he ended his shift he would walk one more time into Montana State Prison. “See you at home, Mom,” he had said to his wife. That was what he called Helen sometimes. They had two daughters, grown and gone, and it felt good to speak to his wife as if the children were still at home. He had come to the prison in 1957. Like many of the guards before him, who found their way to Deer Lodge from the sawmills and the mines and the timber crews, he arrived at the prison with dirt on his heels. After leaving the Army after World War II he went to work in the grain elevators in Charlo, Ronan, Polson, Pablo and Paradise, all towns in northwestern Montana. Sollars was an ordinary blue-collar worker, as unadorned as the other guards who filed in and out of those imposing sandstone and granite walls. He was about to find out how plain men take on new worth in a crisis. He swung the canvas sack onto his shoulder and walked forty paces across Main Street and into the lengthening shadows of two mighty cell houses. The fortresses stood four stories high. Castle-ike turrets clawed at the pale sky from each of the eight corners. One cell house had been built before the turn of the century, the other, during Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency. They made an awe-inspiring sight to travelers who drove into town on Highway 10, a two-lane ribbon of asphalt, and stopped and pointed their Brownies to snap pictures. The forbidding prison, by some accounts one of the worst in the country, made for interesting vacation snapshots next to the more pastoral elements of Montana, like steaming geyser spray from Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. Like most prison guards, Sollars saw little romance in the rugged architecture of the cell houses. He thought them ugly and wretched because he knew of the misery that they hid. He felt them staring at him with their troubled swollen eyes. The prison had eyes everywhere. The hundreds of prisoners watched and remembered all they saw, as did the guards if they knew what was good for them. The seven wall towers watched what was inside, and everything inside stared back. Eyes watched from everywhere. It was said that the prison’s ears heard all, even a ghost’s whisper. Wind swept the scent of spring snow off the mountains that loomed like a painted backdrop behind the prison. The scent stung his nose but felt fresh and clean. Only when Sollars arrived at the looming stone entrance did he shiver. Instinctively he zipped his blue uniform jacket. He tilted the bill on his police-style cap to shut out the sun, which already was fading behind the prison. Then he looked up. On the wall outside the tower, known as Tower 7 or the main gate, a guard stood with a loop of clothesline rope. He uncoiled it and let it drop twenty feet or so to Sollars, who unclipped from it a brass key that filled his hand. At the front of the tower, standing almost on Main Street where the cars rolled past, Sollars unlocked an ornate black grill door to enter the base of the two-story tower. Here, the easy innocence of small-town Deer Lodge dissolved into a dark cave of sandstone rock. A naked bulb cast dull yellow light that didn’t penetrate the corners. The room was cold and drafty. Sollars felt a change in him as he always did when he went inside. He locked the grill door behind him. This time, the rope dangled through a round opening in the ceiling. The guard who had stood on the wall a minute earlier was now inside the tower, up in the eagle’s nest where he could see the guts of the prison through its broad windows. Sollars attached the key, tugged on the rope, and the guard above pulled it back. Seconds later the rope returned. A new key rattled inside the tin tube. Sollars used it to unlock a wooden door, as thick as his hand was wide, on the opposite side of the tower. He swung open the door, stepped into the prison yard, and locked it again. The other guard, standing outside on the wall again and facing the prison now, dropped the rope. Sollars surrendered the key. He crossed a short courtyard to ten steps that led upward to another barred door. Behind it was Inside Administration, where guards brought their prisoner counts. Convicts came for medicine, or to get their teeth pulled in the dental office, or to shine the guards’ black leather shoes. In the photo office, they took pictures of the “fish,” the new men who arrived through the main gate and wrote descriptions of their scars and tattoos in case of escape. The visiting room was here, too. Inside Administration was the business district of this town of criminals. The cell houses, like big brothers, pressed against the chalk-white Inside Administration on either side, dwarfing it. On the south end, to Sollars’ left, was the 1896 version. This cell house had buckets for toilets. Despite all the technological inventions before its construction, it more resembled a Civil War-era fortress with its galleys of wood and its cell doors that had to be locked individually. It was made of dark brick, the color of dried blood. Its round turrets had roofs that came to a point, where in the early days big flags flew. To the north, the 1912 cell house was much the same in its rectangular construction, although its brick looked more orange by contrast and its square turrets flared at the top. Even forty-seven years after it was built, guards called this building the “new” cell house because it had plumbing and interlocking cell doors. None of the guards would doubt that this was Floyd Powell’s prison. The new warden from Wisconsin State Prison, a champion of reform, had proclaimed at his arrival eight months earlier that he would change this reputed hellhole into a model institution that would be the envy of every prison in America. Not everyone shared his enthusiasm. Some residents of Deer Lodge greeted his presence with skepticism, others with disdain. The town wasn’t accustomed to a warden of such outward determination, and the prospect of an improved prison was a new idea. In Wisconsin he had a reputation as a bit of a daredevil because he was willing to go into prison cells to talk inmates out of knives or other weapons. From childhood he lived a hard life and was determined to overcome it. As a boy, and the oldest son, he took over the family farm when his father became disabled in a car accident. He also hired out as a laborer to bring extra money home. He was a driven, determined self-made man. The new warden arrived in Deer Lodge to repair decades of decay and mismanagement at the only prison in Montana’s vast landscape. It was an outpost of sorts, planted in a town of fewer than 4,000 residents in a tall empty county