ARTHUR.T Stories ----A Flight Into Texas ----X---Page 55

In the meantime, Dodge and Bracken had taken up their headquarters at
the Rice Hotel in the most expensive suite of rooms in the house, a new
scheme for getting the prisoner beyond the reach of the New York courts
apparently having been concocted. Dodge was now indulged in every
conceivable luxury and vice. He was plunged into every sort of excess,
there was no debauchery which Bracken could supply that was not his and
their rapid method of existence was soon the talk of the county and
continued to be so for ten long months. There is more than one way to
kill a cat and more than one method of wiping out the only existing
witness against a desperate man striving to escape the consequences of
crime.

Dodge's daily routine was somewhat as follows: He never slept at his own
hotel, but arose in the morning between ten and eleven o'clock, when he
was at once visited by Bracken and supplied with numerous drinks in lieu
of the breakfast for which he never had any desire. At noon the two
would have luncheon with more drinks. In the afternoon they would retire
to the pool rooms and play the races, and, when the races were over,
they would then visit the faro banks and gamble until midnight or later.
Later on they would proceed to another resort on Louisiana Street where
Dodge really lived. Here his day may be said to have begun and here he
spent most of his money, frequently paying out as much as fifty dollars
a night for wine and invariably ending in a beastly state of
intoxication. It is quite probable that never in the history of
debauchery has any one man ever been so indulged in excesses of every
sort for the same period of time as Dodge was during the summer and fall
of 1904. The fugitive never placed his foot on mother earth. If they
were going only a block, Bracken called for a cab, and the two seemed to
take a special delight in making Jesse, as Jerome's representative,
spend as much money in cab hire as possible. The Houston jehus never
again experienced so profitable a time as they did during Dodge's wet
season; and the life of dissipation was continued until, from time to
time, the prisoner became so weak from its effects that he was forced to
go under the care of a physician. A few days of abstinence always
restored his vitality and he would then start out upon another round of
pleasure.

During this period Jesse maintained a close and vigilant personal

espionage over the prisoner. For over ten months he slept less than four
hours each day, his fatigue being increased by the constant apprehension
of treachery among his own men, and the necessity of being ever on the
alert to prevent some move on the part of the defense to spirit the
prisoner away. During the summer attempts were repeatedly made to evade
the vigilance of Jesse and his men and several desperate dashes were

frustrated by them, including one occasion when Bracken succeeded in rushing Dodge as far as Galveston, where they were forced to abandon their design.

From time to time Bracken would disappear from Houston for a week or ten days, stating on his return that he had been to New York, after which
there was invariably some new move to get the prisoner away. Time and space prevent giving a detailed account of all the marches and
counter-marches that took place in this battle of wit against wit.

In August, 1904, Bracken made one of his periodical visits to New York,
and when he returned sought out Jesse and said: "Blocher, you might as
well be a good fellow and get yours while you can. I mean that Dodge is
not going back to New York, even if it cost a million dollars to prevent
it." A few days later Bracken sent a gambler named Warner to Jesse, who
offered the latter thirty-five hundred dollars to get "lost" long enough
for the prisoner to slip over to Mexico. Acting upon the advice of his
attorney, Jesse encouraged this attempt, under the belief that if he
could get the Hummel forces in the position of having attempted to bribe
him the prisoner's bail could then be forfeited and Dodge himself taken
into custody. Hummel became wary, however, and apparently abandoned for
the time the idea of bribery. Later on Bracken again disappeared. On his
return a marked change was noticeable in his demeanor and Jesse observed
that he was in constant consultation with Dodge, from which the
detective drew the inference that some last desperate move was to be
made towards the escape of the prisoner.

On one occasion Jesse saw Bracken showing Dodge a map and some 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 thousand dollars. The

only result of this offer was to lead Jesse to redouble his precautions,

for he argued that the situation must indeed be acute when such an offer

could be deemed worth while. Thereafter it was obvious that the revelry

of Dodge and his companions was on the increase. Accordingly Jesse added to his force of assistants.

On December 2, 1904, Nathaniel Cohen, another member of the firm of Howe and Hummel, arrived at Houston, and the next day the Supreme Court at
Washington decided the appeal in the habeas corpus against the prisoner, who was at once ordered by Judge Burns into the custody of United States Marshal William M. Hanson.

Things looked black indeed for Dodge and blacker still for Hummel. How
the little attorney, eating his midday lunch four thousand miles away,
at Pontin's restaurant on Franklin Street, must have trembled in his
patent leather boots! His last emissary, Cohen, at once procured an
assistant by the name of Brookman and with him proceeded to Wharton
County, Texas, where they secured a new writ of habeas corpus and
induced the local sheriff, one Rich, to swear in a _posse comitatus_ of
one hundred men for the purpose of coming to Houston to take the
prisoner by force of arms out of the hands of the United States Marshal.

This was one of the most daring and desperate attempts made in recent
years to frustrate the law. Jesse believes that the real object of this
_posse_ was to precipitate a fight between themselves and the Federal
authorities. It is not inconceivable that in such an event Dodge might
either have escaped or been killed. The men composing the _posse_ were
of the most desperate character, and consisted largely of the so-called
"feud factions" of Wharton County, known as "The Wood Peckers" and "The
Jay Birds." Jesse has been informed, on what he regards as reliable
authority, that this move cost the Hummel forces fifteen thousand
dollars and that each member of the _posse_ received one hundred dollars
for his contemplated services in the "rescue" of the prisoner. But civil
war, even on a small scale, cannot be indulged in without some inkling
of the facts becoming known to the authorities, and prior to the receipt
of the mandate of the Supreme Court, Judge Burns ordered the prisoner
removed to Galveston for safe keeping.

Thus the long, expensive and arduous struggle came finally to an end,
for Judge Burns in due course, ordered that Charles F. Dodge should be
conveyed to New York in the personal custody of the United States
Marshal and delivered by him to the New York authorities "within the
borders of that State." Such an order was, of course, exceedingly
unusual, if not almost unheard of, but it was rendered absolutely
necessary by the powerful influence and resources, as well as the
unscrupulous character, of those interested in securing Dodge's
disappearance.

In order to thwart any plans for releasing the prisoner by violence or

otherwise, and to prevent delay through the invoking of legal

technicalities, Hansen and Jesse decided to convey Dodge to New York by water, and on the 16th of December, the Marshal and his five deputies
boarded a Mallory Line steamer at Galveston and arrived in New York with their prisoner on the evening of December 23d.

Dodge reached New York a physical wreck. How he was induced to tell the
whole truth after he had pleaded guilty to the charge against him is a
story in itself. A complete reaction from his dissipation now occurred
and for days his life was despaired of. Jesse, too, was, as the
expression is, "all in," and the only persons who were still able to
appreciate the delights of New York were the stalwart Marshal and his
boys, who for some time were objects of interest as they strolled along
Broadway and drank "deep and hearty" in the cafes. To the assistants in
the District Attorney's office they were heroes and were treated as
such.

How Dodge finally testified against Hummel on the witness stand has

already been told. As they say down-town, if Jerome had never done

anything else, he would have "made good" by locking up Abe Hummel. No one ever believed he would do it. But Jerome never would have locked up Hummel without Jesse. And, as Jesse says with a laugh, leaning back in his chair and taking a long pull on his cigar, "I guess I would not do
it again--no, I _would_ not do it again for all the money you could give
me. The wonder is that I came out of it alive." When the reader comes to think about it he will probably agree with him.