n who would have actually helped
him if he had only known was Frank A. Cowperwood. Stener could have
confessed his mistake, as Cowperwood saw it, and Cowperwood would have
given him the money gladly, without any thought of return. But by his
poor understanding of human nature, Stener considered that Cowperwood
must be an enemy of his, and he would not have had either the courage or
the business judgment to approach him.

During his incarceration Cowperwood had been slowly accumulating a
little money through Wingate. He had paid Steger considerable sums from
time to time, until that worthy finally decided that it would not be
fair to take any more.

"If ever you get on your feet, Frank," he said, "you can remember me
if you want to, but I don't think you'll want to. It's been nothing
but lose, lose, lose for you through me. I'll undertake this matter
of getting that appeal to the Governor without any charge on my part.
Anything I can do for you from now on is free gratis for nothing."

"Oh, don't talk nonsense, Harper," replied Cowperwood. "I don't know of
anybody that could have done better with my case. Certainly there isn't
anybody that I would have trusted as much. I don't like lawyers you
know."

"Yes--well," said Steger, "they've got nothing on financiers, so we'll
call it even." And they shook hands.

So when it was finally decided to pardon Stener, which was in the early
part of March, 1873--Cowperwood's pardon was necessarily but gingerly
included. A delegation, consisting of Strobik, Harmon, and Winpenny,
representing, as it was intended to appear, the unanimous wishes of the
council and the city administration, and speaking for Mollenhauer and
Simpson, who had given their consent, visited the Governor at Harrisburg
and made the necessary formal representations which were intended to
impress the public. At the same time, through the agency of Steger,
Davison, and Walter Leigh, the appeal in behalf of Cowperwood was made.
The Governor, who had had instructions beforehand from sources quite
superior to this committee, was very solemn about the whole procedure.
He would take the matter under advisement. He would look into the
history of the crimes and the records of the two men. He could make no
promises--he would see. But in ten days, after allowing the petitions to
gather considerable dust in one of his pigeonholes and doing absolutely
nothing toward investigating anything, he issued two separate pardons in