Dr. Robertson saw that he was an expert bookkeeper and could handle both the pen and typewriter with amazing agility. As he showed unusual brightness and precocity he was made assistant bookkeeper in the Clothing Department under Officer Weinberg. In the summer of 1901 Shep came to the conclusion that he had better abandon the seclusive privileges of Elmira and seek “fresh fields and pastures new” in some more congenial climate where the restraints of prison life were not so oppressive and where he would have room for the development and display of his mental powers. When Shep found that he would be compelled to live in the Reformatory longer than he thought necessary, he very cautiously put out “feelers” to see if money could help him to freedom. As we read over the ramifications of his correspondence and follow the unraveling of his deeply laid schemes, we are forced to believe that some person or persons in the institution must have given him encouragement. From this time on, Shep, who possessed the luxury of a cool, calculating head, set himself to work by a well laid scheme to secure his liberty. Shep must have had a fertile brain. Whether the information was sent him or not we do not know, at any rate he knew that there was a large corporation in Baltimore, known as the Shep Knitting Mill Company. As he had access to the Prison Printing Office he had letter heads struck off with the name and address of the mill. After this he wrote typewritten letters to the chairman of the Board of Trade, of Spencer, Mass., offering to build a knitting mill in that New England city, on which he proposed to spend $14,000, provided the citizens would give a site and a bonus of $2,500. The correspondence between Shep and Spencer Board of Trade was voluminous. Shep had also written to a Philadelphia firm who promised to furnish the machinery and he was able to have an architect and a representative of the machinery firm meet in Spencer and look over the site for the new mill—all of which impressed the citizens of Spencer with the “realism” of the scheme. By December, 1901, the Spencer Board of Trade had raised the necessary bonus of $2,500 to send to Shep, as soon as the details were arranged, but alas, the whole project had no foundation whatever except in the fertile brain of Shep, the Elmira convict!