drawings on paper, which so excited his suspicions that he followed
the two with unremitting assiduity, and within a day or two was
rewarded through Bracken's carelessness with an opportunity for
going through the latter's coat pockets in the billiard room. Here
he found a complete set of plans worked out in every detail for
spiriting the prisoner from San Antonio into Mexico during the
State Fair. These plans were very elaborate, every item having
been planned out from the purchase of tickets, and passing of
baggage through the customs, to hotel accommodation in the City of
Mexico and Tampico, and steamship tickets from Tampico to Europe.

The plan had been to secure permission from the Court for Dodge to
leave Houston long enough ostensibly to attend the fair at San
Antonio and to "lose" him during the excitement and crowded
condition of the city at that time.

It is, of course, needless to say that these plans were abandoned
when Bracken discovered that Jesse had been forewarned.

Almost immediately thereafter the Circuit Court of Appeals at Fort
Worth, Texas, decided one of the habeas corpus cases adversely to
Dodge, but it still permitted him to retain his liberty pending the
final determination of the questions involved by the Supreme Court
at Washington.

The Hummel forces were apparently losing hope, however, for early
in October another attempt was made to bribe Jesse. Bracken
entered his room one evening and informed him that he could get his
own price if he would only be a good fellow, and even went so far
as to exhibit a quantity of money which he stated was twenty-five