n accordance with the assassin's maxim, "Dead men tell
no tales." Their hatred rose to such a pitch that they began to exhibit
their enmity toward any one that either sympathized, befriended, or was
even familiar with the colonel. Here was the ground of their deadly
animosity toward me. They supposed I was his confidant, and might be an
agent for the execution of his designs.

These murderers,--(I ask no pardon for so harsh an epithet, for they
were such in thought and deed,)--these Grand Masters, who visited the
colonel while I waited upon him, and thus became personally known, have,
ever since that event, assumed a hostile attitude toward me. It is true
they have never attacked me publicly, yet I am confident they have hired
others to do it. From the time I drew the money put in deposit by
Sandford, and bore off that object of curiosity, so carefully concealed
in the bed, until the day I was chased as a mad dog by an infuriated mob
through the streets of New Orleans, and finally made good my escape
through a troop of less hostile cotton snakes, as recorded in my
Gambling Unmasked, I was singled out as an object of open and private
hate by the whole tribe of organized desperadoes. To recover those
papers, no steps were too desperate for the Grand Masters--they having
any amount of money to accomplish their object; and I am now about to
present the reader with another exhibition of their daring and
indefatigable perseverance.

They now came to the conclusion that those papers had been given to the
officers of the bank, and were deposited in the clerk's office of the
United States court, to be used against them at some future day. They
offered rewards to several of the inferior grade, for the purpose of
getting possession of the box containing the plates, counterfeit money,
and, as they supposed, the lost package. Their only hope now lay in
getting that box. The time of Taylor's trial had been fixed. Mr. Munger
informed me I could leave the city for a few days, and he would let me
know when my services were wanted. I went to Bayou Sara, one hundred and
fifty miles above New Orleans. A few days after my arrival, Mr. Munger
came after me in great haste, bringing the information that a great and
daring burglary had been committed the same night I left the city. The
clerk's office had been entered, and the box, containing Taylor's
indictments, plates, and spurious money, had been taken. Taylor's jury
had not agreed, and he