insignificant, he will never succeed in interpreting the
hieroglyphics.

At intervals of two or three weeks, beginning in the summer of
1871, registered packages passing to and fro from Chicago to a town
in the interior of Dakota Territory, which for convenience will be
called Wellington,--though that was not its name,--were reported to
the department as rifled. As the season wore on, the complaints
increased in frequency. Under the old method of doing business at
headquarters, which often amounted practically to a distribution of
the cases about equally "among the boys," the agent stationed at
Chicago received most of them at first; then a part were sent to an
agent in Iowa; and as the number multiplied, Furay, at Omaha, was
favored with an occasional sprinkling. Under the present more
perfect system, great care is taken to group together all the
complaints growing out of each series of depredations, to locate
the seat of trouble by comparisons carefully made in the department
itself, and to give everything bearing on the subject to the
officer specifically charged with the investigation.

March came around before Mr. Furay found time to give personal
attention to this particular thief. He then passed over the route
to Wellington, eighty miles by stagecoach from the nearest railroad
station, with ten intermediate offices. All the packages remained
over night at Sioux City, Iowa, a fact sufficiently important to
invite close scrutiny; but the detective soon became satisfied that
he must look elsewhere for the robber. His suspicions were next
directed to another office, where also the mails lay over night;
but the postmaster bore a countenance so open and honest that he
too was eliminated from the problem.