Bit by bit, all this material was removed from the German Club—in suitcases and via taxi-cab. They were exciting little rides we took those days, and my heart was often in my mouth when our chauffeur turned corners in approved New York fashion. But luckily there were no accidents and in a day or so all of our materials were stored away; part of them in my apartments—not in the Holland House, alas!—but in a cheap section of Harlem. For von der Goltz, the spendthrift, the braggart, was seen no longer in the gay places of New York. He had spent all his money, and now, no longer of interest to the newspapers—or to the secret agents of the allies—had taken a two dollar and a half room in Harlem where he could repent his follies—and be as inconspicuous as he pleased. So it came about that toward the middle of September we five—Fritzen, Busse, Tucker, Covani and myself—took train for Buffalo, armed with dynamite, automatic guns, detonators and other necessary implements, and proceeded absolutely unmolested, to go to Buffalo. There I engaged rooms at 198 Delaware Avenue and began to reconnoitre the ground. I made a trip or two over the Niagara River via aëroplane, with an aviator who unquestionably thought me mad and charged accordingly; and at the suggestion of von Papen, I secured money for my expenses from a Buffalo lawyer, John Ryan. It had been decided that von Papen should let us know when the Canadian troops were about to leave camp so that we might strike at the psychological moment. A telegram came from him, signed with the non-committal name of Steffens, telling me that Ryan had money and instructions. Ryan gave me the money, as I have stated, but insisted that he had no instructions whatever. Then, after a stay of several days in Niagara, during which we did nothing but exchange futile telegrams with Ryan and “Mr. Steffens”—we learned that the first contingent of Canadian troops had left the camp—and my men and I returned to New York, unsuccessful. Our failure was greater than appears on the surface, for my men and I were a blind. Our equipment, our loud talking, our aggressive pro-Germanism—even our secret preparations, which had not been secret enough—were intended primarily to distract attention from other and far more dangerous activities. We had been watched by United States Secret Service men from the very beginning of our enterprise. During our entire stay in Buffalo and Niagara, we had been under the surveillance of men who were merely waiting for us to make their suspicions a certainty by some positive attempt against the peace of the United States. We _knew_ it and wanted it to be so. And while they were waiting for sufficient cause to arrest us, other men, totally unsuspected, were making their way down through Canada, intent upon destroying _all_ of the bridges and canal locks in the lake region!