that the individual having them, whoever he may be, will be base enough to keep them from me. Some of them are very ancient, and among the number are several sheets of blank parchment, which belonged to my grandfather. I have preserved them as a memento. Their loss would be a source of great grief."

The landlady turned away, apparently satisfied with her statement and forced apology. She then turned to me and said,

"I will have those papers at the price of my life. If they are lost"—here she made a stop and added, "I shall dislike it."

I discovered an extreme anxiety depicted in her features—her breast was actually heaving with emotion.

"Green," said she, "has old Cunningham been about here to-day?"

"I believe not," was my reply. "I have not seen him."

"Well," she continued, "I hope he may never enter this house again, though he appears to be the best friend that my husband and the colonel possess. He pays strict attention to his business, at the same time, which does not seem consistent."

This Cunningham, so abruptly introduced, was a man quite advanced in years, a member of the fraternity, and, considering his age, was a very active and efficient agent. At this juncture, the old servant, who attended to the room, entered. She (Mrs. B.) inquired "if any person had been in her room during her absence to the prison." The servant tried to recollect. While he delayed, my heart palpitated violently from fear, lest he might say he had seen me enter her room. I was on the point of confessing the whole matter. I felt that I was suspected. At this critical moment he broke the silence—a silence burdened with anxiety to the lady as well as myself, by remarking that he had seen the old gentleman (meaning Cunningham) "go up stairs, and he thought enter her room."

"I have it!" exclaimed she. "He has got them." I need not tell the reader I felt greatly relieved, that there was at least the shadow of evidence, which would serve to clear me and implicate Cunningham. The lady appeared to be intensely excited. I was in doubt what course it would be prudent for me to pursue. Finally, I went to the house of Watkins, and told him that the package I had given him was of no value to any person but myself; that it was made up of various articles of writing, containing hundreds of names, many of which were familiar to me. He looked them over in a cursory manner, and remarked,

"I think there must be witchcraft in these. The letters, though very simple, bear upon their face a suspicious appearance." He, however, agreed to preserve them with care.

CHAPTER V.

After my interview with Watkins, I felt greatly relieved. I hastened to the hospital to see the colonel, as was my custom, often several times a day. I found him surrounded with visitors, all of whom appeared to be affected while in his presence. He needed sympathy. His mind was tortured. His whole life seemed made up of successive throes of excitement and desperation. His heart was torn by conflicting passions. His confidence and affection for former friends were evidently waning. If any remained, it hung like the tremulous tones of music uncertain and discordant upon its shivered strings. After the principal visitors had retired, the following individuals, three from Lawrenceburgh, two from Cincinnati, one from Madison, and one from Frankfort, made their appearance, accompanied by one of the colonel's legal advisers. They counseled with him for some time. The legal gentleman remarked, at the close of the mutual conversation:

"It will do. I have conversed with your friends," calling his two principal attorneys by name. "They say something of that kind must be done. It will have a powerful effect. T. cannot ward off such licks as we will give him."

The meaning of this fellow was, that bribery could be effectually used. This man, who thus offered to subvert, by the basest of means, the claims of public and private justice, was so lost to shame and self-respect, that he verily thought it an honourable and creditable act, if he could render himself notorious for clearing the most abandoned scoundrels. It argued the most deep-seated depravity, to commit unblushing crime and then glory in his infamy. He heeded not the means, so he accomplished his end. He would not hesitate to implicate himself, for it was but a few days after this, when he offered me a bribe, as before stated, and likewise the counterfeit money. (I here have reference to the five hundred dollars, to which I referred in my work called "Gambling Unmasked.")

After the party had retired, the colonel said in a few days he would be able to secure bail—that they were waiting for an intimate friend,—a wholesale merchant from Philadelphia. He then conversed with me more freely, and told me much about his enemies in Dearborn Co., Ind., and also his intimate friends. Said he:

"You may live to hear of my success in making some of those Dearborn county fellows glad to leave their nests, which they have feathered at my expense."

It was the next day after this, that I made known to Mr. Munger the fact, that a bribe had been proffered me to swear against T., in favour of the brothers. Some two days after, I received the note containing the information respecting the hidden treasure. See the work above mentioned.

These circumstances, with the excitement occasioned by the loss of the package, created a great sensation, especially with the friends of the colonel and his brother. Fear and jealousy were at work with the whole banditti of public swindlers. They knew not on whom to fix the imputation of purloining their valuable papers. Cunningham was suspected, and likewise Spurlock, another old confederate, who had frequently visited the room of the unfortunate lady. Sturtivant, one of their principal engravers, was thought to be implicated, and even one of their pettifoggers was on the list of the proscribed. They did not fix upon me till several days after. The circumstances of this suspicion I will now detail.

The Lawrenceburgh members had not complied with their promises. One was waiting to turn his produce into cash, and when he was ready to fulfil his engagement, no action could be taken, because his fellow townsmen had their excuses for delay and non-concurrence. The Philadelphia merchant had arrived, but suddenly left, as the report says, "between two days." Two others of the intended bail were among the missing. I carried a letter to another, who owned a flat-boat. I went on board and found his son, but learned that the father had gone up the coast on business, to be absent several days. The son took the letter, broke it open, and read it. He told me to say to the colonel that his father was absent and had written to him that he intended starting home in a few days, probably by the next boat. I went back and bore the message. The lawyer who had given me the letter cursed me for permitting the son to open it. The colonel turning over on his bed, and fastening his eyes upon the enraged attorney, with a mingled expression of anger and despair, said,

"I am gone, there is no hope for me. I see, I see, they have robbed me of my property, my papers, poisoned, and then forsaken me. I have not much more confidence in you than in the rest."

"My dear colonel," said the implicated sycophant, "do you think I would ever treat so basely a client so liberal and worthy as yourself," at the same time wiping his cheek as if a tear had been started by such an unkind imputation.

He then requested me to go for Mrs. B., and tell her, he requested her presence at the hospital. I went in search of the wife,