It was during a great strike, and outrages were being committed all over the city of New York by dynamiters supposed to be in the employ of the unions. Young Guthrie, who was a reckless dare-devil, offered his services to the employers, and agreed (for a trifling compensation) to join one of the local unions and try to find out who were the men blowing up office buildings in process of construction and otherwise terrorizing the inhabitants of the city. The story of his success deserves a chapter by itself, and it is enough here to state that he applied for membership in the organization, and by giving evidence of his courage and fiber managed to secure a place as a volunteer in the dynamiting squad. So cleverly did he pass himself off as a bitter enemy of capital that he was entrusted with secrets of the utmost value and took part in making the plans and procuring the dynamite to execute them. The quality of his nerve (as well as his foolhardiness) is shown by the fact that he once carried a dress-suit case full of the explosive around the city, jumping on and off street cars, and dodging vehicles. When the proper moment came and the dynamite had been placed in an uncompleted building on Twenty-second Street, Guthrie gave the signal and the police arrested the dynamiters—all of them, including Guthrie, who was placed with the rest in a cell in the Tombs and continued to report to the district attorney all the information which he thus secured from his unsuspecting associates. Indeed, it was hard to convince the authorities that Guthrie was a spy and not a mere accomplice who had turned State’s evidence, a distinction of far-reaching legal significance so far as his evidence was concerned.