his credit, which was good, and he did not see the Browns
till he was preparing to start. They make him liberal offers, because
they never intend to pay, and it matters little what they offer. He then
sends some of the meaner members of the gang to the landing, to order
him a few days' journey further, and there they meet him again, and
butcher, and pack the hogs. They are well paid for their villany by the
job, which they take care to make a fat one. The merchant was paid for
his part of the rascality by the profit on his stores, and perhaps by a
bonus out of the money advanced. They then thought that if they could
implicate him in any unlawful business, he would tell no tales about
them; accordingly, they entice him, or rather drive him to the
counterfeit trade. But conscience makes bad men cowards, and they felt
uneasy, so, by means of some of the band, they have him arrested; the
proof is so positive that he must be convicted, and the poor fellow was
thrown into the penitentiary. But even here they did not consider him
safe, although under a false name; so, through the influence of some of
the _aristocracy_, they get him pardoned; and then the moment he is
free, they meet him, tell him of all they have done for him, and propose
a new scene of action. Poor fellow, what can he do? He goes with them to
this new scene of action, but in all probability he finds it a state of
_rest_, for "dead men tell no tales."

Thus, for the paltry price of a drove of hogs, was an honest man ruined,
and, for fear of detection, murdered.

CHAPTER XII.

Probably in no era of the world, and certainly never among a Christian
people, was there formed a more bold, daring, and, at the same time,
secret association, than the one whose constitution and by-laws we now
present to the reader. Composed of men of all classes and grades in
society, from the priest at the altar, the judge on the bench, the
lawyer at the bar, down to the most common felon and street thief or
pickpocket, all bound together by a solemn oath, they laboured for the
general cause of secret plunder, to the enriching of themselves at the
expense of the mass. But having previously shown how I procured my
information regarding these desperadoes, I shall leave farther comment
on their acts, for the present, to the public, before whose tribunal
they must be arraigned, and proceed at once to present their

CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS.

_Hanging Rock, Western Distr