Thus every one of these robbers found a watery grave.  Mr. Beausoliel had his property restored to him, and pressing all sail went on his way rejoicing.

A few years after this, about the year 1800, there was a noted robber named Mason, who occupied what is called, “The Cave in the Rock.”  This renowned cavern was about twenty miles below the Wabash river.  Its entrance was but a few feet above high water-mark, and opened into a very remarkable chamber, two hundred feet long, eighty feet wide and twenty-five feet high.  Throughout the whole central length the floor was quite level, and on each side of this central aisle the sides rose in tiers, like the seats of an amphitheatre.

This remarkable cave is connected with another a little above.  Here this Mason, a man of gigantic stature, and of inferior education and intellect, had his concealed retreat, with two sons and several other desperadoes, organized into a band of land and water pirates.  With great skill they prosecuted their robberies, plundering boats as they descended the river, but more often watching the return boats, to rob the owners of the money which they had received from the sale of their cargoes.

As the population of the Ohio valley increased, Mason deemed it expedient to abandon the Cave in the Rock and established himself with his gang, on a well known and much frequented trail called the Nashville and the Natches Trace.  Here his gang became the terror of the whole travelling community.  Sometimes, with his whole band decorated in the most gaudy style of Indian warriors, with painted faces, and making the forest resound with hideous yells, they would swoop down upon a band of travellers, inflicting outrages which savages could not exceed.

The atrocities of which this desperate gang were guilty, at length became so frequent and daring, accompanied with the most brutal murders, that Governor Claiborne, of the Mississippi Territory, offered a large reward for the capture of Mason dead or alive.  But the wilderness of prairie, forest and mountain was very wide.  Mason was familiar with all its lurking places.  For a long time he baffled all the efforts of the authorities for his capture.

Treachery at last delivered him to the hands of justice, or rather brought his ignominious career to a close, inflicting upon him the violent and bloody death which he had so often inflicted upon peaceful and innocent merchants and travellers.  Two of his own band, tempted by the large reward which was offered, and perhaps maddened by his tyranny, for he ruled his gang with a rod of iron, conspired to kill him.  They watched their opportunity and one day, as Mason was counting out the money he had just gained by the robbery of some merchants, one of them advancing from behind him, struck a hatchet into his brain.  The accomplices then cut off his head, and carried it to the Governor at Washington, which was the seat of the Territorial government.  They received their reward.  They, however, received another reward which they had not anticipated.