scharge them. The arrest and examination, however, crude and informal
as they were, confirmed the suspicions of the citizens, and directed
them, more vehemently than ever, against Cutler, as well as his friends.
It satisfied them, moreover, that they would never be able to reach
these men through the ordinary forms of law, and strengthened the
counsels of those who had already suggested the organization of a
company of regulators.

While these things were fermenting in the minds of the people, the
desperadoes, encouraged by their success, and rendered bold by impunity,
committed their depredations more frequently and openly than ever. It
was remarked, too, that Cutler, having committed himself at the
examination of friends, was now more constantly and avowedly their
associate; and, since he was not a man to play a second part, that they
deferred to him on all occasions, never moving without him, and treating
him at all times as an acknowledged leader. The people observed,
moreover, that from being, like his neighbors, a small farmer of limited
possessions, he rose rapidly to what, on the frontier, was considered
affluence. He soon ceased to labor on his lands, and set up a very
considerable "store," importing his goods from Saint Louis, and, by
means of the whiskey he sold, collecting all the idle and vicious of the
settlement constantly about him. His "store" was in exceedingly bad
repute, and the scanty reputation which he had retained after the public
part he had taken before the magistrate, was speedily lost.

Things were in this state in the spring of eighteen hundred and
twenty-one, when an old gentleman of respectable appearance, who had
emigrated to this country by water, having been pleased with the land in
the neighborhood of the place where the town of Naples now stands,
landed his family and effects, and settled upon the "bottom." It was
soon rumored in the settlement, that he had brought with him a large
amount of money; and it was also remarked that Cutler and his three
companions were constantly with him, either at the "Grove" or on the
"bottom." Whether the rumor was the cause of their attention, or their
assiduity the foundation of the report, the reader must determine for
himself.

One evening in May, after a visit to this man, where Cutler had been
alone, he came home in great haste, and suddenly announced to Margaret
his intention to "sell out," and move further westward! His unhappy
victim su