ry's coach. He arrived each time in
Washington between eleven and twelve. He knew the approaches to the
stable, and luckily for him, on the dark night of the eighth of June he
accomplished his design, how successfully the reader well knows.

The strategic Colonel, with his four devoted men, invaded the privacy of
the White House at exactly quarter of two o'clock in the morning; he had
the aid of a card taken from the case in the coupe, and the
re-enforcement of his now marvellous resemblance. What he now did the
veriest tyro could have performed. He had not meant to abduct the first
lady of the land, but what could he do with her? His native chivalry
would not permit him to harm her, though the President was made
unconscious by the aid of the Chicago anaesthetic. The wife entreated to
accompany her husband. She would undergo any fate so that he should not
be taken without her. On condition of perfect quiet her wish was
gratified. She was softly led, the President was carried, down the
deserted stairs. The familiar state coach bore the distinguished victims
away, and the deed that baffled the detective skill of the country was
done with an ease which seems ridiculous.

The next evening the President and his wife might have been seen by
Inspector Byrnes, had he been there, silently sitting on the deck of a
murky-looking vessel, bearing name _Mary Jane_, and anchored in a little
cove off a swamp and cottage on Oddminton Island. So remote and quiet
was this locality that the rumor of the President's effacement had not
even reached it. The kidnapped couple waited patiently for the relief
that they momentarily expected. They had no news, nothing but scrupulous
consideration, attention, and a respectful but firm guard night and day.
But rescue did not come.

One member of that dark crew was left in Washington to hold continual
communication with the Colonel. This was the boy Rupert, who, if he had
suspected by this time what had happened, was either too loyal or too
terrified to reveal the fact. The letters that astonished the world were
written by the Colonel, sent to his son sealed, directed each in a
different handwriting, and stamped with full instructions how and where
to mail them. The boy had travelled faithfully and far. Of course a
letter posted by an innocent-looking boy of fifteen, who was unsuspected
and unknown, was able to baffle the law. He was the only confederate, a
helpless and faithful tool.

A country t