The outlook was stormy. Mr. Folk felt now in full force the powerful interests that opposed him. The standing of some of the prisoners was one thing; another was the character of the men who went on their bail bond—Butler for the bribe takers, other millionaires for the bribers. But most serious was the flow of persons who went to Mr. Folk privately and besought or bade him desist; they were not alone politicians, but solid, innocent business men, eminent lawyers, and good friends. Hardly a man he knew but came to him at one time or another, in one way or another, to plead for some rascal or other. Threats of assassination and political ruin, offers of political promotion and of remunerative and legitimate partnerships, veiled bribes—everything he might fear was held up on one side, everything he might want on the other. “When you are doing a thing like this,” he says now, “you cannot listen to anybody; you have to think for yourself and rely on yourself alone. I knew I simply had to succeed; and, success or failure, I felt that a political future was not to be considered, so I shut out all idea of it.” So he went on silently but surely; how surely may be inferred from the fact that in all his dealings with witnesses who turned State’s evidence he has not made one misstep; there have been no misunderstandings, and no charges against him of foul play. While the pressure from behind never ceased, and the defiance before him was bold, “Go higher up” was the challenge. He was going higher up. With confessions of Turner and Stock, and the indictments for perjury for examples, he re-examined witnesses; and though the big men were furnishing the little boodlers with legal advice and drilling them in their stories, there were breaks here and there. The story of the Central Traction deal began to develop, and that went higher up, straight into the group of millionaires led by Butler. But there was an impassable barrier in the law on bribery. American legislators do not legislate harshly against their chief vice. The State of Missouri limits the liability of a briber to three years, and the Traction deal was outlawed for most of the principals in it. But the law excepted non-residents, and Mr. Folk found that in moments of vanity Robert M. Snyder had described himself as “of New York,” so he had Snyder indicted for bribery, and George J. Kobusch, president of the St. Louis Car Company, for perjury, Kobusch having sworn that he knew of no bribery for the Central Traction franchise, when he himself had paid out money. Kobusch turned State’s witness against Snyder.