A THUMB-PRINT AND WE AT CAMS OF TT. 305
Did I appeal to the law—11 Does it quench the pauper's thirst
if the King drink for him 1 Oh, no, no, no—I wanted no impertinent
interference of the law. Laws and the gallows could not pay the debt
that was owing to me ! Let the laws leave the matter in my hands,
and have no fears: I would find the debtor and collect the debt.
How accomplish this, do yon say ? How accomplish it, and feel so
sure about it, when I had neither seen the robbers* faces, nor heard
their natural voices, nor had any idea who they might be ? Never-
theless, I was sure—quite sure, quite confident. I had a clue—a clue
which you would not have valued—a due which would not have
greatly helped even a detective, since he would lack the secret of
how to apply it. I shall come to that, presently—you shall see.
Let us go on, now, taking things in their due order. There was one
circumstance which gave me a slant in a definite direction to begin
with : Those two robbers were manifestly soldiers in tramp disguise ;
and not new to military service, but old in it—regulars, perhaps;
they did not acquire their soldierly attitude, gestures, carriage, in a
day, nor a month, nor yet in a year. So I thought, but said nothing.
And one of them had said, * the captain's voice, by O------! *—the one
whose life I would have. Two miles away, several regiments were
in camp, and two companies of TL S. cavalry. "When I learned that
Captain Blakely, of Company C had passed our way, that night, with
an escort, I said nothing, but £n that company I resolved to seek my
man. In conversation I studiously and persistently described the
robbers as tramps, camp followers; and among this class the people
made useless search, none suspecting the soldiers but me.
Working patiently, by night, in my desolated home, I made a
disguise for myself oat of various odds and ends of clothing; In the
nearest village I bought a pair of blue goggles. By-and-bye, when the
military camp broke up, and Company C was ordered a hundred miles
north, to Napoleon, I secreted my small hoard of money in my belt,
and took my departure in the night, "Wlien Company C arrived in
Napoleon, I was already there. Yes, I was there, with a new trade—
fortune-teller. Not to seem partial, I made Mends and told fortunes
among all the companies garrisoned there; but I gave Company C
the great bulk of my attentions. I made myself limitlessly obliging
to these particular men ; they could ask me no favour, put upon m&