More than twenty years ago, the city of Gloster was one of the most thriving cities of the West. Controlling the interior trade to a large extent, its interests were of the most varied character, and its inhabitants were already distinguished as being more cosmopolitan than those of any other city in the Union, except New York. They had imbibed, perhaps, some of the genius of the prairies, and their scorn of petty methods of doing business, their breadth of charity and hearty hospitality, were as boundless as the great plains of which the city was the business center at that time. Among such a people, a plausible adventurer had a fine field of operation, and I was not surprised when I was asked to go to Gloster in the latter part of the winter to investigate the character of some persons who were living there. The application came from Senator Muirhead, a man whom I had long known, both in his public and private life. His suspicions were of the vaguest possible character, and a hasty examination of the case failed to convince me that they were well founded; yet he was convinced in his own mind that there was a fraudulent scheme in contemplation, and his positive conviction had great weight with me. The Senator's interest in the case had led him to make extensive inquiries into the antecedents of these parties, but he was unable to trace them further back than their arrival in New York, several months before. There they had suddenly appeared in society with a great display of wealth, stating that they had been traveling in Europe for some time, and were gradually making their way back to Peru, where they lived. Don Pedro P. L. de Morito and his wife, having enjoyed life in New York for several months, now proposed to spend at least a year in Gloster, and it was this couple whose character was suspected by the Senator. Indeed, he felt sure that, at least, they were traveling under assumed names, and certain coincidences led him to believe that they were adroit swindlers of the most capable, dangerous type. He had discovered a chain of circumstantial evidence which needed only one link to make a clear connection between certain crimes and these fascinating Peruvians, and it was for the purpose of discovering this link that he had requested my aid. In brief, his suspicions were, that after innumerable frauds in other countries, this plausible pair had settled in Gloster to add to their ill-gotten wealth by some new scheme of villainy. His theoretic history of the man, derived from various sources, mainly newspapers in which crimes had been described bearing the same style of workmanship, was as follows.