At length their situation became desperate.  Already had they passed one year within the walls of a gloomy prison, without the privilege of a trial.  They were required to give bail in the sum of twenty thousand dollars each.  No satisfactory bonds could be procured.  The whole community were incensed against them.  They had for a long time trampled upon private rights and warred against the best interests of the people.  They had set at defiance all laws instituted for purposes of justice and protection, and they could not but expect a stern rebuke from all the friends of morality and good order.  The only prospect before them, upon a fair trial, was a sentence of twenty years to the penitentiary.  This was by no means cheering, especially to those who had lived in ease and affluence, whose bodies were enervated by voluptuousness and hands made tender by years of idle pleasures.  Crowds were gathering to witness their trial, and waiting in anxious suspense the issue.  Disgrace, public disgrace and lasting infamy stared them in the face.  They were put upon their last resources, and necessity became the mother of invention.  They fixed upon the following plan to extricate themselves.

Public opinion must be propitiated.  An interest in their behalf must be awakened by some manifestation that would touch the chord of sympathy.  A double part must be played.  They would affect to change their sentiments.  In this they acted according to the laws of the secret brotherhood.  With them, any thing was honesty that would effect their purposes.  But to consummate their design, another object must be secured—­some innocent person must be implicated and made a scape-goat for, at least, a part of their crimes.  This game they understood well, for they had been furnished with abundant means and instructions.  It required also deep-seated iniquity of heart, and in this there was no lack, for they were the sublimation of depravity.  They must also have time and capital.  These were easily provided, as will be seen in the sequel.  There was an individual with whom they had become acquainted in Cleaveland, and upon whom suspicion had rested for some time.  He was the man fixed upon as their victim.  Of course he was not a member of their organized band.  “Honour among thieves” forbids the selection of such a one.  It was necessary, however, that he should be somewhat of a villain.  Here also they exhibited much sagacity in the selection.  It now only remained to slip his neck into the noose that was in preparation for themselves.  All the instrumentalities being prepared to their liking, they immediately set the infernal machinery in active operation.