e the men, closely guarded,
were confined. He entered the familiar room where he so long had worked,
and easily placed his hands on his (to him) precious kit of tools, and
carried his jimmies, wedges, sledges, bits, braces, drills, etc., to the
wall, and then landed them safe outside. Then he returned and entered
the room where the plunder he sought lay. Thanks to his friend, the way
was easy, and his art was not required to secure it. There were 600
ounces in silver bars, a pretty good load in avoirdupois, but he only
made one journey of it, mounted the wall and speedily was over.

Stoneman was a long-headed fellow. He had taken, without the owner's
leave, one of the many boats on the banks of the near-by river. He
carried his plunder and tools down to the boat, and pulled across the
river, two miles down, to where quite a stream empties into the
Connecticut. He pulled some distance up it; then putting everything into
bags he sank them in the creek. Then drifting back into the Connecticut
River again he threw his ladder over and turned the boat adrift. At 7
o'clock the next morning he was in New York.

In due time, in the idiom of the professionals, he "raised his plant,"
and the burglar's kit manufactured in the Connecticut State Prison did
what Stoneman considered yeoman service. With all his art and cunning,
justice would not be cajoled by him, but weighed him in her balance, to
a good purpose too. His success in his particular line was great, but he
paid dearly for it all. Many times he escaped detection, but not always.
Not to escape, but to be brought to the bar, means a fearful gap in the
life of a criminal. He was, as I say, famous in certain circles for his
success in his lawless course, yet in the twenty years between 1865 and
1886 he passed sixteen years in captivity. In that year he went to
England with a confederate, and a few hours later in London they
snatched a parcel of money from a bank messenger in Lombard street. Both
were caught in the act, and sentenced at the Old Bailey to twenty years
each. To-day Stoneman is toiling under brutal task-masters, and it is
all but certain he will perish at his task, friendless, alone, unpitied.
Better so even, for should he ever be freed it will not be until the
twentieth century is well on its way to the have beens of time, then
only to find himself a battered hulk stranded on a shore from which the
tide has ebbed forever.

CHAPTER XLIV.

I FIND THE FENI