r arrived, and I willingly consented. The
Superintendent had much suavity of manner, and it was hard for me to
tell whether he considered me guilty or not. I rather thought he
suspected me. When I found that my time with the company was to be so
short I determined to make a good haul, as I knew I could never get a
situation in the business again, for the Adams Express was the only
express company in the South. I began to look around to see how I could
best accomplish my purpose. I studied the character of the different
messengers, and thought Chase the best man to operate upon. I determined
to wait until I had a good heavy run out, and then put my plan in
operation. Chase was a good, clever fellow, but careless. I tried him in
several ways, and found that he could be "gulled" more easily than any
of the other messengers. I could not do anything on the runs in, as the
messengers checked the packages over to me, but on the runs out I
checked over to them, and, with a careless man like Chase, it would be
the simplest thing in the world to call off packages, and, as he checked
them off, for me to drop them behind the counter instead of into the
pouch."

_CHAPTER XXVI._

On the twenty-seventh of January I had a very heavy run in, and among
numerous other packages were four that attracted my attention; one for
Charleston, S. C., for two thousand five hundred dollars, and three for
Augusta, Geo., for thirty thousand, five thousand and two thousand five
hundred dollars respectively. Chase was going out in the morning, and
then was the time to act. I got an old trunk that was lying in the
office, and packed it full of different articles, among other things
four boxes of cigars. Early in the morning I was up and down at the
office. Chase soon came in, drew his safe over to the counter, and began
to check off the packages marked on the way-bill, as I called them off
and placed them in the pouch. If he had obeyed the rule of the company
he would have taken each package in his hand and placed it in the pouch,
but he carelessly allowed me to call off the amounts and place the
packages in the pouch. In this way, as he stood outside of the counter,
I was enabled to call off all the packages on the way-bill, but dropped
the four containing the forty thousand dollars under the counter amongst
a lot of waste paper I had placed there for the purpose. The way-bill
checked off all right; Chase said "O. K.," so I locked the pouch, ha