Meantime Kaffenburgh departed for New York, fleeing from the wrath of Judge Burns, who had issued a summons for him for contempt of the Federal Court on the ground that he had induced Dodge to attempt to jump his bond.  In place of the blustering Kaffenburgh was sent another member of the famous law firm of Howe and Hummel, David May, an entirely different type of man.  May was as mild as a day in June—­as urbane as Kaffenburgh had been insolent.  He fluttered into Houston like a white dove of peace with the proverbial olive branch in his mouth.  From now on the tactics employed by the representatives of Hummel were conciliatory in the extreme.  Mr. May, however, did not long remain in Houston, as it was apparent that there was nothing to be done by either side pending the action of the courts, and in any event Dodge was abundantly supplied with local counsel.  The time had now come when Hummel must have begun to feel that the fates were against him and that a twenty-year term in state prison was a concrete possibility even for him.

In the meantime, Dodge and Bracken had taken up their headquarters at the Rice Hotel in the most expensive suite of rooms in the house, a new scheme for getting the prisoner beyond the reach of the New York courts apparently having been concocted.  Dodge was now indulged in every conceivable luxury and vice.  He was plunged into every sort of excess, there was no debauchery which Bracken could supply that was not his and their rapid method of existence was soon the talk of the county and continued to be so for ten long months.  There is more than one way to kill a cat and more than one method of wiping out the only existing witness against a desperate man striving to escape the consequences of crime.

Dodge’s daily routine was somewhat as follows:  He never slept at his own hotel, but arose in the morning between ten and eleven o’clock, when he was at once visited by Bracken and supplied with numerous drinks in lieu of the breakfast for which he never had any desire.  At noon the two would have luncheon with more drinks.  In the afternoon they would retire to the pool rooms and play the races, and, when the races were over, they would then visit the faro banks and gamble until midnight or later.  Later on they would proceed to another resort on Louisiana Street where Dodge really lived.  Here his day may be said to have begun and here he spent most of his money, frequently paying out as much as fifty dollars a night for wine and invariably ending in a beastly state of intoxication.  It is quite probable that never in the history of debauchery has any one man ever been so indulged in excesses of every sort for the same period of time as Dodge was during the summer and fall of 1904.  The fugitive never placed his foot on mother earth.  If they were going only a block, Bracken called for a cab, and the two seemed to take a special delight in making Jesse, as Jerome’s representative, spend as much money in cab hire as possible.  The Houston jehus never again experienced so profitable a time as they did during Dodge’s wet season; and the life of dissipation was continued until, from time to time, the prisoner became so weak from its effects that he was forced to go under the care of a physician.  A few days of abstinence always restored his vitality and he would then start out upon another round of pleasure.