It was now the duty of the detective to collect statistics connected with the order of which he had been made a member. That he might accomplish this object, he must travel from place to place. Therefore, saying his health demanded rest from work in the mines—even should labor present, and of this there were serious doubts—he prevailed upon Lawler to grant him a traveling card, directed to the officers of all divisions in the United States, through which—with the “goods”—admission could be secured in any city, town, or village. This card had to be countersigned by Barney Dolan, County Delegate, before it was valid. The name was easily gained, through a short trip to Big Mine Run. Night and day during the spring, fall, and winter, McKenna had been exposed to all sorts of weather and late hours, and it told upon his constitution, which must have been of iron to have held out so long, and he grew thin, cadaverous, and his strength perceptibly and rapidly failed. The symptoms were aggravated by a dry cough, which drove off refreshing sleep. Although it was not his intention to stay long away from Shenandoah—which place, from the material in and surrounding it, he believed to be the grand center of the field of operations of the Mollie Maguires—and so informed all his friends—the parting between McKenna and McAndrew was a scene of mutual regrets. All disliked to have him leave. This was especially the case with Cooney, Lawler, Monaghan, Fergus, and little McNulty. But, after many good wishes from the men and women, and promises on his part that he would return as soon as fully recovered, the detective occupied a car on the Lehigh Valley Road, the evening of the fifteenth of May, 1874, and reaching Wilkesbarre, Luzerne County, the same day, took up quarters at the Railroad Hotel, of which Daniel Shovlin was then proprietor. Some bitter experiences were in store for McKenna. There must be the bitter with the sweet. Bearing letters from Lawler and others to William Kirk, County Delegate of Luzerne, he encountered no difficulty in forming the acquaintance of the chief Mollies of the vicinity. He found that there were at that time only a little less than thirty divisions, or bodies, in the county, all of which were in a prosperous condition, as many as thirty or forty persons being added to the lodge in Wilkesbarre alone during a single night. County Delegate Kirk was a gentlemanly person, kept a store, and was kind enough to say that Schuylkill County, from which his visitor came, “was, from its course, a disgrace to the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and should be cut off, root and branch, until there could be a complete remedy for the difficulty in reorganization.”