t be," he thought,
"that both men are implicated in this nefarious matter? For even if
this letter from B. S. to A. D. was written to Anson Drane instead of
Abner Dudley, this torn fragment, which is undoubtedly in Logan's
handwriting, seems suspicious; but, perhaps, if I had the whole letter,
the references in it would bear an entirely different construction to
that which I have placed."

Early Friday morning Gilcrest called for his horse, and rode to
Lexington. Arriving there, he went straight to Drane's office, but
found it locked. He then made inquiry at the young man's tavern, where
he was told that Drane had left town very hurriedly the evening before,
and had not said when he would return.

That was the last time that James Anson Drane was seen in Kentucky.
When the day set for Burr's trial in Frankfort arrived, Drane was
sought in vain. Later, when Burr, Blennerhassett, and other
conspirators, were arraigned at Natchez, and still later at Richmond,
Drane was again in demand, but he had completely disappeared; and his
exact connection with that famous episode of American history, the
Aaron Burr conspiracy, was never known. About twelve years later, a man
said to be very like him was reported as an influential and wealthy
lawyer of St. Louis.

Upon the same Thursday that Drane received at Oaklands the anonymous
warning, Abner Logan, while at work in a field near the road, received
from a passing packman a note which, the bearer said, had been given
him for Logan, by a man whose name the peddler had forgotten, but who,
as the peddler said, "lived down that way," pointing vaguely down the
road. The messenger was not Simon Smith, the packman who periodically
visited the neighborhood to sell his wares to the housewives
thereabout, but a stranger. The note which he gave Logan was worded
exactly as the one Drane had received an hour earlier at Oaklands.

Abner's first feeling upon reading this missive was bewilderment as to
the identity of the friend who had sent it; his second, indignation
that any one should think him in any way implicated in the Burr affair.
"'A sincere and disinterested friend,' indeed," he thought; "it's some
ruse to get me into this queer business."

Before receiving the anonymous communication, Logan, being desirous of
hearing Clay and Daviess speak, had partly promised Mason Rogers, who
felt a lively interest in the trial, to go with him to Frankfort. Logan
now fully determined to let no