On Saturday, Sept. 3rd and Sunday five of these strangers were in Mankato, and attracted universal attention by their peculiar carriage, suave manners, and fine, almost _distingue_ appearance. They were well dressed and rode good horses, and sat their horses like men who were bred to the saddle. They made several purchases in the town, and one of them visited the City Bank and obtained change for a fifty dollar bill. When riding through the streets they showed their excellent horsemanship with a great amount of display and swagger entering into conversation with several citizens upon the merits of the animals they rode. They did not all stay at the same hotel, two of them registering at the well known and justly celebrated Clifton House while two others stopped at the Gates House, but it is not known where the fifth man put up. Two of the men, however, spent most of the night on the Sunday at a low brothel kept by the notorious character Jack O’Niel. This foul den of infamy is just outside the city limits on the opposite bank of the Minnesota river, and is surrounded by heavy timber. A more fitting place for a thieves’ rendezvous, and for hatching plots or dark deeds, could hardly be imagined. It should be stated here, that after the visit of the two strangers, Jack O’Neil went to the Sheriff of Mankato and informed him that three young men—living in Mankato were plotting at his house to rob and probably murder an old man supposed to be possessed of considerable wealth, and residing at Vernon, some eighteen miles from Mankato. He made arrangements for the sheriff to overhear their conversation which resulted in the arrest of three young rowdies, Mark Ingals, George Peabody and James Quane, who were frequenters of O’Neil’s infamous den. A MURDER PLANNED. It appears that an old man named Gallager, living in a log cabin on the skirts of the woods surrounding Vernon, was supposed to have in his possession a considerable sum of money. The old gentleman lived alone, was known for his parsimony, and thought to be “a penurious niggard of his wealth.” The plan of these young villians was to go to the house of the supposed miser, disguised, pretend to be “lost chicken hunters in the woods,” and induce the old man to come out and show the way. Getting him into the woods they were to extort from him by threats the whereabouts of his supposed hidden treasure, if threats failed, they were to have recourse to torture, and that failing to murder!