McCormick did as commanded. He found the corner of Third Avenue and One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Street to be a half-abandoned spot near the east bank of the Harlem, at its juncture with the East River. A low barroom, a disused manufacturing plant, and some rookeries of dubious tenantry ornamented the place, while coarsely dressed men, the dregs of the river quarter, lounged about and robbed the stranger of any gathered reassurance. The old boiler was there, standing in the center of open, flat ground that sloped down to the railroad tracks and the river under the Third Avenue bridge. Plainly the writer of the letter had chosen a likely spot, which might be kept under observation from a considerable distance and could not be surrounded or approached without the certain knowledge of a watcher posted in any one of a hundred windows commanding the view. McCormick deposited the package and went his way, while disguised detectives lay in various vantages and watched the boiler for days. No one went near it, and the game was abandoned. But, at the end of ten days, McCormick received a second letter from Kid, in which he was reproached for having enlisted the police; he was told that such crude tactics would not work, and he was ordered to place two thousand dollars in cash under a certain stone, which he was directed to find under the approach of the McComb’s Dam bridge, a few rods from the mouth of Cromwell Creek. He was told that the amount of the ransom had been increased because of his association with the police, and the letter closed with the solemn warning that the demand must be met if McCormick hoped to see his son again. A postscript said that if the police appeared again the boy’s ears would be thrown upon his father’s porch. Relatives, friends, and neighbors were at hand to furnish the demanded money, and the father was more than willing to deposit it according to the stipulation, but the police again intervened and had McCormick leave another dummy packet. Once more he saw, and the police should have noted, that the spot selected by the letter writer was most suited to the purpose. Once more it was an open area in the formidable shadow of a great bridge, freely observable from all sides and impossible to surround effectively. No one was baited to the trap, but McCormick got a third letter from Kid, in which he was told that his silly tactics would avail him nothing; that his boy had been taken out to sea, and that he would not hear again until he reached England. He was told to blame his own folly if he never beheld his child alive.