s that he followed the two with
unremitting assiduity, and within a day or two was rewarded through
Bracken's carelessness with an opportunity for going through the
latter's coat pockets in the billiard room. Here he found a complete set
of plans worked out in every detail for spiriting the prisoner from San
Antonio into Mexico during the State Fair. These plans were very
elaborate, every item having been planned out from the purchase of
tickets, and passing of baggage through the customs, to hotel
accommodation in the City of Mexico and Tampico, and steamship tickets
from Tampico to Europe.

The plan had been to secure permission from the Court for Dodge to leave
Houston long enough ostensibly to attend the Fair at San Antonio and to
"lose" him during the excitement and crowded condition of the city at
that time.

It is, of course, needless to say that these plans were abandoned when
Bracken discovered that Jesse had been forewarned.

Almost immediately thereafter the Circuit Court of Appeals at Fort
Worth, Texas, decided one of the habeas corpus cases adversely to Dodge
but it still permitted him to retain his liberty pending the final
determination of the questions involved by the Supreme Court at
Washington.

The Hummel forces were apparently losing hope, however, for early in
October another attempt was made to bribe Jesse. Bracken entered his
room one evening and informed him that he could get his own price if he
would only be a good fellow, and even went so far as to exhibit a
quantity of money which he stated was twenty-five thousand dollars. The
only result of this offer was to lead Jesse to redouble his precautions,
for he argued that the situation must indeed be acute when such an offer
could be deemed worth while. Thereafter it was obvious that the revelry
of Dodge and his companions was on the increase. Accordingly Jesse added
to his force of assistants.

On December 2, 1904, Nathaniel Cohen, another member of the firm of Howe
and Hummel, arrived at Houston, and the next day the Supreme Court at
Washington decided the appeal in the habeas corpus against the prisoner,
who was at once ordered by Judge Burns into the custody of United States
Marshal William M. Hanson.

Things looked black indeed for Dodge and blacker still for Hummel. How
the little attorney, eating his midday lunch four thousand miles away,
at Pontin's restaurant on Franklin Street, must have trembled in his
patent leather boots! His