Beall’s plan of attack on the _Michigan_ is not intelligible. Cole intended to have some of her officers ashore that evening participating in a revel, and perhaps there was some basis for the later talk of drugged wine to be sent aboard. Captain Hunter remembers two occasions when Cole did send wine to the officers. The prisoners knew some scheme for their release was on foot, for Archibald S. McKennon, of South McAlester, I. T., the present counsel for the Seminole Nation, who was then on the island, tells the writer: “We were organized into companies and regiments and had armed ourselves with clubs, which were made of stovewood and other material at hand, with which to make the fight. I think I was a captain of the organization. Anyhow, I occupied some position by which I had information of the contemplated movement, for I remember I had several conferences with the colonel of the organization as to my duties, and we were in constant expectation of orders to make the fight, which never came. It surely would have been a pitiable affair, for the undertaking was wholly impracticable.” Capt. Hunter has an ingenious theory that Beall intended that just as the _Parsons_ entered the Bay, she should burst into flames, and when the _Michigan_ sent her boats to rescue the passengers, the conspirators could get possession of these and with them gain the deck of the warship without arousing suspicion. Gen. Dix did find on the _Parsons_ some combustible material, but he was probably right in supposing that it had been prepared for the purpose of burning Banker Ives’s house or the _Parsons_ when she was abandoned. It looks as if Beall was trusting largely to luck, which, as the case turned out, was overwhelmingly against him. For on Saturday, two days before he boarded the _Parsons_, a man professing to be a Confederate refugee in Canada called at the military headquarters in Detroit and gave such information that the following telegram was sent to the _Michigan’s_ commander: DETROIT, _September 17, 1864_. CAPT. J. C. CARTER: It is reported to me that some of the officers and men of your steamer have been tampered with, and that a party of rebel refugees leave Windsor tomorrow with the expectation of getting possession of your steamer. B. H. HILL, _Lieutenant-Colonel, U. S. Army, Military Commander_. FREDERICK J. SHEPARD. BUFFALO, N. Y. (_Conclusion next month._) [Illustration: Fleuron] ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS LETTER OF ROBERT STUART, INDIAN AGENT, TO JOHN C. SPENCER, SECRETARY OF WAR.