er sent from Nashville to St.
Paul. They kept him a prisoner that night while Turtle left by the first
train for St. Paul with the receipt in his pocket. The next morning
found him in St. Paul, and a few minutes later he walked out of the
office with the registered letter, which proved to be a bulky one.
Tearing it open he found it full of United States bonds and greenbacks,
amounting in all to $20,000. The next day all save $1,000, reserved for
the victim, was divided among the four birds of prey. That day the
victim was taken before a friendly magistrate and fully committed to
await in jail the action of the Grand Jury. Twenty-four hours later a
tool called on him at the jail, and gave him the option of taking $1,000
and getting out of town by the first train or getting ten years for the
possession of burglar tools. The poor fool, with trembling eagerness,
accepted the first part of the ultimatum, and within an hour a bail
bond was filled up, and darkness found the baffled old man speeding
westward, never again to look on his own people.

But how was he a baffled old man? He had embarked in a scheme of
villainy, but had been beaten at his own game by sharper rascals. From
whom did he steal the money? Read:

In a small Tennessee town there lived a widow whose husband had been
killed in the Confederate army and who found herself, like so many more
Southern ladies at the close of the war, impoverished, and with a family
of children to be provided with bread. But it seems she was a brave
body, and with a head for business. She opened a small hotel in
Nashville, and by reason of her history, no less than her excellent
hostelry, she thrived apace, and, investing all her savings in newly
started industrial enterprises in Nashville, her small investments
brought in large returns, which were reinvested, until at 40, finding
herself mistress of a competency, she quit business and went to spend
the remainder of her days where she was born. The hero of the adventure
in Chicago was not only her neighbor, but had been the comrade of her
husband through the deadly fights of the war. She naturally turned to
him as a friend for advice. He first asked her to be his wife, and upon
her refusal he began to urge her to dispose of all her interests in
Nashville and reinvest her money in the nearby city of Knoxville. At
last she consented, and sent him to Nashville with authority to act as
her agent. He disposed of her property, except the