the three months preceding the blowing up of the Independence depot Orchard had been seen at least eighteen or twenty times entering at night by stealth the rooms of a detective attached to the Mine Owners' Association, and at least seven meetings were held between him and the railroad detective already mentioned. Previous to all this--in September and in November, 1903--attempts were made to wreck trains. A delinquent member of the Western Federation of Miners was charged with these crimes. He involved in his confession several prominent members of the Western Federation of Miners. On cross-examination he testified that he had formerly been a prize-fighter and that he had come to Cripple Creek under an assumed name. He further testified that $250 was his price for wrecking a train carrying two hundred to three hundred people, but that he had asked $500 for this job, as another man would have to work with him. Two detectives had promised him that amount. An associate of this man was discovered to have been a detective who had later joined the Western Federation of Miners. He testified that he had kept the detective agencies informed as to the progress of the plot to derail the train. The detective of the Mine Owners' Association admitted that he and the other detectives had endeavored to induce members of the miners' union to enter into the plot; while the railroad detective testified that he and another detective were standing only a few feet away when men were at work pulling the spikes from the rails. An engineer on the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad testified that the railroad detective had, a few days before, asked him where there was a good place for wrecking the train. The result of the case was that all were acquitted except the ex-prize-fighter, who was held for a time, but eventually released on $300 bond, furnished by representatives of the mine owners.[42]