After having been handcuffed, and placed in the boats, part of our men were left in the cave to secure the spoils, while the rest of us returned with our prisoners to Portage. It was one of the largest hauls of counterfeiters, with their implements of trade and spurious money, as well as a fair amount of good paper, which had up to that time ever been made in the West, and redounded very much to the credit of my chief, as well as myself--the last, mainly on account of the warm way in which he was pleased to compliment the share I had taken in it. Most certainly it resulted in the breaking up of the gang at that time known as the Guy Fox band, whose depredations had extended for several years from the Lakes to the Gulf. It had been the terror of the country, as it had resorted to every species of crime with the view of furthering their schemes. In due time they were all convicted and sent for various terms to the Penitentiary. All of them had the satisfaction of serving out their time, with one solitary exception. This was my friend the pilot of the raft, whose wish to make me a tool had led to their apprehension. He was not, in every respect, a bad fellow, and his look of bewildered astonishment when, with the handcuffs on his hands, he saw me on the boat with Pinkerton, was so miserably pitiable, that I could not help feeling some tenderness towards him. In the fulness of my heart, I spoke to my chief about him on the same night after our return to Portage. "I will see about it, Mose," he replied, with a dry smile. "But, if you had as long an experience as I have, you would know how useless mercy would be to him. What is in the bone will out in the flesh." The fellow was released, upon Pinkerton's application, some twelve months afterwards, and, as I have heard, verified my chief's appreciation of rascality. It has been said he was shot by a stalwart farmer, some three years afterwards, in the neighborhood of Dubuque, Iowa, in consequence of an attempt at highway robbery. This fact, however, I am unable to verify. So, let my readers charitably hope, the lesson he had received bore the good fruit of turning him again into the paths of honesty. CHAPTER III. UNDER THE SHADOW OF MY OWN VINE AND FIG-TREE--TOO MUCH SYMPATHY--AGAIN IN THE THEATRE--MY FIRST TRIP ACROSS THE PLAINS--A FIDDLE AS A SENSATION--THE FREE FIGHT--MY FIRST LESSON IN SWIMMING--WANTED, A NEW BOW--JUDGMENT ON A WHISKEY-DRINKER--THE THIRD TIME--OUT HE GOES--A STAMPEDE--GROWING INTO FAVOR--THE HORSE-THIEVES--MILITARY JUDGMENT. For a brief time, I again returned to my father, who had been unwilling that I should rejoin Pinkerton. He could stand my being deputy-sheriff under his own eye, but he did not relish my becoming a regular detective. However, his term of office as sheriff was now expired, and I told him: "I must do something."