William J. Flynn
The Barrel Mystery

CHAPTER I
THE BARREL MURDER

Where the East River swims around the foot of Eleventh Street is an old abandoned wooden dock that looks more like the broken skeleton of a buried wreck than the thing it used to be. A covey of barges are huddled against the wharf opposite, and this wharf gradually becomes solid pavement where the lumber yard begins. It fronts the street with the most dilapidated board fence in Christendom made up of broken odds and ends covered with a crazy patchwork of corrugated iron scrap stained and rusted by the weather. If an old-time pirate – one of those romantic devils with scarred and battered features and a black patch over one eye – should suddenly peer at you through one of the many cracks in the splintered stockade you could not be very surprised; in fact, you would almost expect it to happen.

Farther up is a livery stable, a mere hole in a pile of bricks, once red now slavered over with white-wash once white. Outside is a man clipping the mane of a truck horse with its harness dragging in the filth. On the corner is a saloon, such as you find on the East Side, shouldering against the dry dock storage for live poultry with chorus of cackling inmates. On the corner opposite is a huge, green cheese of a building occupied by various small manufacturers. The third corner bulges with the huge cisterns of the gas works soiled and smeared with soot and fumes. The fourth corner has become historic. Every Secret Service man in the city knows what is on the Northwest corner of East Eleventh Street and Avenue D. They know the old, battered red brick walls that belong to the New York Mallet Works, walls that look as if they have been scarred by a fusillade of machine guns, walls with rusted chicken-wire netting before windows that are never cleaned except when the rain is drumming against them, walls that are broken by a huge portal closed by a worm-eaten, wooden gate quite in keeping with the whole thing. There is a ramshackle tenement next door with rooms for rent and shutters all drawn – shutters that were doubtless a shrill green once upon a time but now camouflaged by the blasts of blistering sun and cutting rains into a crazy-quilt of strange hues, shutters maimed and broken and dangling and just hanging together. The only open aperture in the weird and forbidden dwelling is the entrance, breathing filth and the sour odor of poverty. Crowding close to the tenement is an almost cavernous fodder and feed store, its broken, soiled windows half-hidden behind shattered boards and laths from which remnants of bill-posters, stained and ragged, flutter now and then. A heap of rubbish, garlanded with a jumble of rusty wire and battered tin cans, adorns the broken curb. A pair of cast-off baby shoes with buttons dangling are sailing on a pool of dirty water.

Desolate as the spot is it appeared even more so on the morning of April fourteenth, 1903, in the haze and the drizzling rain of an early hour. But Mrs. Frances Conners, an Irish woman, did not notice these things as she crossed the spot on her way to the bakeshop to get rolls for breakfast. She was used to the place. Wrapped up in the red sweater affected by East Side women and bending her head under her umbrella, she paid no attention to the very things that would have made a stranger pause and gaze. As she slipped across the corner, however, she noticed a barrel standing on the curb in front of the mallet works. That barrel was not there the day before. It was quite a big barrel, the kind they use for shipping sugar. Her feminine curiosity was aroused and she retraced her steps. In this instance curiosity revealed a deed that horrified the entire country, frightened the citizens of New York, and threw the Detective Bureau at Police Headquarters into a panic. The revelation also brought home to many people the disquieting realization that there were assassins in our midst that defied the efforts of our police to cope with them.

An overcoat was thrown over the top of the barrel. It was fairly damp but not quite wet, indicating that it could not have been there very long. Mrs. Conners raised the coat. Quickly she let it drop and screamed. There was a man's body crushed into the barrel. The body was in a doubled-up position, both feet and one hand sticking over the rim of the barrel.

Summoned by Mrs. Conners' screams the neighborhood was on its feet in an instant. A panicky crowd gathered on the fateful corner listening with gaping mouths and blanched faces to the frightened chatter of the Irish woman. Morbid curiosity prompted a few to raise the coat and take a look. Every time this was done some of the women would scream hysterically.

A policeman came running up. The body in the barrel was still warm when the officer examined it after rolling the barrel over and dragging the victim out. About the dead man's neck was wound a strip of gunny-sack. When removed it revealed more than a dozen wounds any one of which would have resulted in death. An ambulance surgeon came at a gallop. He declared that the man could not have been dead more than two hours at the most.

The corpse was taken to the Union Market Police Station. The examination made there led to the conclusion that the victim was a man about the age of forty. His complexion was swarthy and his ears were pierced with rings. The clothing about the dead man's body was of good quality, and there was nothing about the physical make-up to indicate that he belonged to the laboring class. The forehead was of the high, receding type, and it was partly covered with thin, curly hair of a light-brown tinge. The moustache was turning grey. On the left cheek were two scars an inch or more in length forming the letter "V" inverted. It was an old scar.

A closer inspection of the body revealed that at least two weapons must have been used by the assassin or assassins. A narrow, two-edged blade had evidently been used for inflicting the wound just below the left ear. This stab was made by a powerful hand for it was at least three inches deep. A wound above the Adam's apple penetrated sheer to the spinal cord, and was doubtless done by the same weapon. Numerous other and smaller wounds were of a like character. A slash extending from ear to ear across the throat was probably done with a long, sharp blade.

In searching the clothing of the dead man a little brass bound crucifix was found. It was of foreign make with a Latin motto on the scroll work above the figure of the Saviour, and a skull-and-cross-bones at the base of the crucifix. This was found in a waistcoat, in which we also located a silver watch-chain similar in make to those common to the peasantry of Southern Italy. The crucifix was one that is not common to any locality. There was an overcoat on the body, and in one of the pockets two handkerchiefs were found, one of which was small in size and faintly perfumed. The only identification mark on the clothing was on the shoes, which were marked "Burt & Co., opposite Produce Exchange." The shoes were worn, and there was a small patch on one of them. The gunny sack about the throat was marked by the blood stains only. Stencilled on the barrel were the initials "W & T" on the bottom; on the sides "G 233." It was a regulation sugar barrel, and the bottom was covered with about three inches of sawdust soaked with blood. Onion peels and some stubs of cigars of the stogie make were scattered in the sawdust, the kind of cigars that are sold in Italian stores and bar-rooms. A charred note in the handwriting of a woman was found in the barrel. Two written lines were in part legible: "Giorne che venite – subito l'urgenza." Translated the words might read: "Day that you come – suddenly the urgency."

Every device of detection known to the New York Detective Bureau was brought into service. Inspector George W. McCloskey, head of the bureau in person, aided by picked men, scoured every nook and corner of New York in an effort to learn, first of all, the identity of the victim. The whole uniformed force was also instructed to follow any little lead of information which might indicate a connection with the murder. No identification, however, developed.

I read of the murder in the afternoon newspapers. This was on April fourteenth. I recalled certain unusual activities among the band of "Black-Handers" on the night of April 12, which was about thirty-odd hours before the murder must have been committed. It came to my mind that I had seen a face new among the members of the gang. I went to the morgue and looked at the dead man. I identified him as the stranger who recently appeared at the haunts of the Black-Handers. (When I say Black-Handers, I mean also counterfeiters.) Two other Secret Service men also identified him. The body was taken out of the ice and measured according to the Bertillon method.

For some time prior to the murder I had been closely in touch with Morello, with Lupo and others of their band. I had them under surveillance for the purpose of arresting them on a charge of counterfeiting.

On the night of April 12, having accumulated considerable information concerning this band, I personally picked up the trail and followed several members of the band from their counterfeiting headquarters in the café at Elizabeth and Prince Streets. Just around the corner from this café was the saloon of Ignazio Lupo, another rendezvous of the gang. In the rear of Lupo's saloon Giuseppe Morello conducted an Italian restaurant.

Trailing along, I followed several of the gang to the butcher store of Vito La Duca, at No. 16 Stanton Street, which is just east of the Bowery. Among those present in the store was Morello, whom I had arrested four months previously for counterfeiting. He was the only one of the gang which I had arrested who had escaped conviction. Two others of the men present were Antonio Geneva and Domenico Pecoraro, both of whom I knew well. And while the three whom I have already named were in animated conversation near the rear of the shop, a fourth man, a face new to me, stood apart from the others near the door. He was the same man found less than forty hours later in the barrel.

While the conversation took place in the rear of the shop I saw a piece of bagging being hung up as a curtain over the glass in the door leading from the street into the store. It was but a few minutes later that I saw a covered wagon driving up to the door. Two men hopped down from the seat and entered the shop. One of them came out again after a couple of minutes and drove away. Shortly after eight o'clock that evening the visitors left La Duca's store. They split up into two groups, the stranger going toward the Bowery with Morello and Pecoraro.

I communicated with Inspector McCloskey, then in charge of the Detective Bureau at Police Headquarters, and told him what I have just related. Immediately there was a rounding up of the gang, my men pairing off with the headquarters detectives and locating eleven of the members of the Black-Hand Society. Here is the list of those arrested as suspects for the murder:

Giuseppe Morello, of No. 178 Chrystie Street.

Ignazio Lupo, of No. 433 West Fortieth Street.

Messina Genova, of No. 538 East Fifteenth Street.

Vito La Duca, of No. 16 Stanton Street.

Pietro Inzarillo, of No. 226 Elizabeth Street.

Domenico Pecoraro, of No. 198 Chrystie Street.

Lorenzo Lobido, of No. 308 Mott Street.

Giuseppe Fanara, of No. 25 Rivington Street.

Giuseppe La Lamia, of No. 47 Delancey Street.

Nicola Testa, of No. 16 Stanton Street.

Luciano Perrino, of No. 47 Delancey Street.

Perrino was also known as Tomasso Petto. He was known among the members of the Black-Hand aggregation as "Il Bove," meaning "The Ox."

Here was certainly a murderous aggregation of the most pronounced criminal type. They were all of them from Sicily. Most of them were armed with a revolver, some also had knives and even stilettos. On Morello the police found a .45 caliber revolver. A knife was tucked away in the waistband of his trousers, a cork being fixed at the point of the blade so that it would not scratch his leg. Petto, the Ox, whom Inspector McCafferty of the detective bureau, and I arrested later, carried his pistol in a holster and a sheath for his stiletto. Most of the suspects had permits from the New York Police Department to carry revolvers. It was this incident, practically, which brought on the crusade against, and the passing of the law forbidding, the carrying of dangerous weapons.

The prisoners were presently hurried to the Morgue, where each of them had a look at the dead man. They were asked individually whether they knew him. The answer was the usual one – a shrug of the shoulders and the words "No understand," "don't know." Morello and Pecoraro were both asked whether they knew the dead man, but denied that they had ever seen him; this in face of my seeing the two in the company of the man now dead less than forty hours before he was murdered. The dead man still remained without a name, and without a friend or relative coming to claim kinship.

Information began to percolate into my office which induced me to take a trip to Sing Sing prison in an effort to bring about the identification of the dead man. It was plain to me already then that the police force was failing in its efforts. I resolved to take a personal interest in the murder and to clear it up if possible.

At this point, let me inform the reader that an anonymous letter was addressed to Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino of the Italian Detective Squad, then a part of the New York Police Department. This letter proved to be of value in elucidating particulars aiding us in identifying the man found murdered in the barrel. The Lieutenant showed this letter to me. Knowing that Petrosino was the best man in the Police Department to handle the situation, I asked him to go to Sing Sing Prison to investigate.

Petrosino took along a photograph of the murdered man. Several of the convicts failed to identify the photograph, but the third man questioned by Petrosino, Giuseppe DePriema, looked at the photograph and said: "That is Maruena Benedetto, my brother-in-law. What has happened?"

DePriema completed the identification by corroborating the watch chain and the crucifix. He also described accurately the scar on Benedetto's face. At first, DePriema was terror-stricken. Later on, however, he grew angry, as only the Sicilian bent on murder can get angry. He gave us the Buffalo address of Benedetto, and told us all about the dead man's business as a stone cutter. DePriema said that his brother-in-law had been out of work for some months past, that he had left Buffalo to associate himself with a band of counterfeiters in New York.

It is my personal opinion that if the New York police had not blundered after arresting the gang named the murderer would have been located in short order. The police made the mistake of locking up the gang together, so that they could speak and plan together. Each man should have been incarcerated separately. The detectives also failed to examine all the letters and all the papers taken from the prisoners when searched.

Returning to New York from Sing Sing, Petrosino came directly to me. Together we went to Police Headquarters and asked to be shown the letters and papers taken from the suspects. Among the litter I found a pawn-ticket for a watch which had been pledged at a Bowery pawnshop for one dollar on the day of the murder. The ticket was found on Petto, the Ox. It was positively identified by the wife of Benedetto, who was brought on from Buffalo. Certain markings and engravings were described by Mrs. Benedetto, which could have been known only to one closely acquainted with the time-piece.

With this evidence to proceed upon, Petto, the Ox, was indicted by the Grand Jury, after being held without bail on the murder charge. Meanwhile, the other suspects were turned out by Police Magistrate Barlow because there was not sufficient evidence to hold them on the murder charge. Murder in the first degree was the charge against Petto.

From then on evidence began to accumulate that convinced me personally of the existence of an organized "Black-Hand" society in New York City. Eminent counsel was engaged and a large fund raised by the criminal associates of Petto, the Ox, to fight for his freedom. During the time that Petto was incarcerated, information came to me that each and every one of the gang was from the same town in Sicily; a place named Corleone, about twenty-seven miles from Palermo. It was in Palermo that Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino, of the New York Police Force, was murdered eventually while in quest of special information for Police Commissioner Theodore Bingham. We also ferreted out the significant fact that in order to gain the inner circle of the secret society, which was furnishing funds for the defense of Petto, the applicant would have to be from the town of Corleone.

When Petto had been held in the Tombs Prison for more than four months his attorney asked that he be released on his own recognizance, the attorney stating that there was not sufficient evidence upon which to bring the accused to trial with any fair hope of convicting him. No sooner was Petto released than he disappeared from his accustomed haunts with the gang in New York.

But Petto did not escape the eye of the Secret Service. He was traced to Pittston, Pa. Nor did Petto escape a blood relative of the murdered man. Probably I had better explain at this point that there is an unwritten law among the Italians of southern Sicily that when a member of a family is murdered, the crime must be avenged by a blood relative of the murdered person. If no blood relative is available, a kinsman by marriage assumes the task.

Petto soon became the leader of a band of black-handers who preyed upon the Italian miners in Pittston. Then one night, when the streets were slippery with a cold, drizzling rain, there came an ominous knock at his door. Petto sensed that something was wrong. He made ready for any emergency and drew his big revolver. But the unknown visitor was quicker than the murderer of Benedetto, and the aim was certain. Five bullets stopped the Black-Hander forever. A dagger was sunk into the heart of Petto, the Ox, to make doubly sure that he was not playing 'possum. Beside the warm body of Petto his revolver was found fully loaded. The hand holding the revolver was partly shot away. On his body was discovered a little brass-bound crucifix with a skull-and-cross-bones at the Saviour's feet, an exact duplicate of that taken from the body of the man found in the barrel. As far as the police records show, the avenger of Benedetto has never been apprehended. Whether the avenger has since suffered a fate similar to his victim I cannot at this moment say.

CHAPTER II
WHAT WAS THE MOTIVE FOR THE MURDER?

How do I know that Petto, the Ox, murdered Benedetto? you would ask.

And what could be the motive for his crime?

Follow me a little further.

In January, 1903, several months before Benedetto's body was found in the barrel, three Italians were arrested in the City of Yonkers. They were Isadoro Crocervera, Salvatore Romano and Giuseppe DePriema. The latter is the brother-in-law of the barrel-murder victim. The three men were apprehended by the local police in Yonkers on the charge of passing counterfeit five-dollar notes of the National Iron Bank of Morristown, New Jersey. The Secret Service men were well aware that these notes were being imported from Italy by the Morello gang.

When I was called into the case, the Yonkers police, who made the arrest, told me that the three men were accompanied by another Italian, a short fellow, who got away. Knowing the ways of the gang, it was plain to me that the escaped Italian was the treasurer of the crew passing the counterfeit money. Such a treasurer is always hiding in the distance with the greater bulk of the counterfeit bills for the purpose of making a get-away if the passers get into trouble and are arrested. The treasurer is supposed to rush away to the secret meeting place of the Black-Hand Society, where a counsel is held to decide just what plan to follow in the effort to get the members who have been arrested out of their peril.

From the description given me of the Italian who made his get-away I recognized him as a counterfeiter already registered in the files of the Secret Service as Number Six. I was also able to identify Crocervera and DePriema as members of the Corleone gang.

My next move was to bring the Yonkers officers to New York and place them where they could have a good look at Number Six. The officers identified the man without hesitation. Number Six was arrested, therefore, on February 19, and gave the name of Giuseppe Giallambardo. He got six years.

The Black-Handers were puzzled. They could not understand how it happened that Giallambardo had come into the toils unless one of the three men arrested had "squealed." And perhaps I should say right here that the gang never realized they were ever under surveillance, and that every move made by them individually was noted in the daily reports of Secret Service sent to Washington.

When Crocervera and DePriema were brought to my office I knew in advance that neither of them would talk, having had the characteristics of the men recorded long before they were arrested. However, in order to give Crocervera the impression that DePriema had told me a lot of the workings of the gang, I hit upon the idea of keeping DePriema in my inner office for several hours while Crocervera remained in an outer office. I was timing my effort for a purpose. As DePriema was leaving, I stepped to the door with him and shook his hand warmly and patted him on the back in order that Crocervera, seeing the performance, might gain the impression that DePriema had confessed all he knew about the gang. Naturally, the object of this move was to tempt Crocervera to talk and give information important to the government. But Crocervera did not talk. The subsequent arrest of Giallambardo served to strengthen the impression already planted in the mind of Crocervera that DePriema had betrayed him, and we overheard Crocervera telling this to the members of the gang while they were in our office.

The gang was not in position to take revenge on DePriema, as he was in Sing Sing prison, where the three men had been sent upon conviction on the charge of passing counterfeit money. Following the hereditary Sicilian custom, the gang then proceeded to select a blood relative of DePriema and mark him for murder. There being no male blood relative of DePriema on this side of the Atlantic, the Black-Hand Society decided that the nearest male relative must pay the penalty for DePriema's treason. Benedetto, the brother-in-law, was chosen as the sacrifice.

These details of the motive of the murder, and the society's choosing Petto, the Ox, to do the killing were confessed to me several years later by members of the gang after I succeeded in convicting them for counterfeiting and had them sentenced to long terms in the Federal Penitentiary at Atlanta, Georgia.

As to the identity of Benedetto's kinsman, who made certain of his aim at Petto, the Ox, near the Italian rendezvous where "Il Bove" held sway in the little Pennsylvania city, I can only answer at the present writing that the kinsman was not DePriema, because the latter was still in Sing Sing Prison when the murder of the man in the barrel was avenged.

CHAPTER III
ORGANIZED TERRORISM

From what has been related so far, I presume the reader may gain some idea of the dangerous type of men whom I refer to as members of the Black-Hand Society.

You are now familiar with the kind of punishment meted out to one whom the gang suspects of having betrayed a member. You have also been acquainted with the Sicilian custom of revenge by way of an actual example showing how the slayer of the man in the barrel came to his end in a manner that is as certain as daylight follows darkness. It is the racial idea of the antique Hebrew law, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." The Sicilian "vendetta" demands a life for a life. You may have noted further that the police of New York and the machinery of the law failed to track down the slayer of the man in the barrel. A circumstance that makes it singularly difficult for the authorities to cope with this type of criminals is that the Sicilian does not ask the police for help when a member of his family is murdered. He keeps it quiet. And as quietly a blood relative of the slain person assumes the responsibility which we Americans place on the police and the courts. The end of Petto, the Ox, shows exactly what happens when individual vengeance succeeds in place of justice meted out by a court of law.

The reader will remember that when the criminal band, which the police rounded up in connection with the barrel murder, were turned out by the police magistrate, because there was insufficient evidence to hold them for the murder of Benedetto, the suspects dropped out of sight as far as the police of New York were concerned.

The Secret Service kept its eagle eye on them, however. Every suspect was carefully "shadowed" by a special operative. We expected that they would gravitate back to their haunts, and they did. We spotted them in such places as the café of Pietro Inzarillo, at No. 226 Elizabeth Street, and in the dark, little Italian grocery shop of Ignazio Lupo, at No. 8 Prince Street, which is just around the corner from Inzarillo's place. We also located suspects loafing around the dingy, garlic-smelling restaurant of Giuseppe Morello, tucked away in the rear of Lupo's grocery shop, like an evil thing afraid of the light of day.

Criminals wanted by Uncle Sam are not suffered to drop from the sight of the Secret Service. Members of this gang were busy in the counterfeit money line. The government was necessarily interested in following their movements. Consequently I stayed right on the job with my men at trailing and spotting the suspects. After a while I had in my possession quite a neat bundle of facts that gradually disclosed to us the impulse and the motives behind this crime-hardened gang of men. I say without the slightest hesitation that the basic, underlying motive of these men is a fierce and uncompromising passion to get rich quick. That is what makes them murderous criminals. It is the same get-rich-quick impulse that we find among unscrupulous business men and gamblers, but it is of a much more dangerous caliber and pregnant with every sinister motive to the most horrible and debased forms of crime. It is true that the "Black-Handers" got a pretty good start in this country before the authorities were alive to the danger, but it is also true that the Secret Service did finally succeed in rounding up the leaders and their henchmen, reducing the nefarious operations to a minimum. Had this not been done just about the time it was actually done, the "Black-Hand" Society would have increased its stranglehold upon the population to a point where the police might not have been able to guarantee the personal safety of the citizens. Even at the present time, when the authorities may be said to have the situation well in hand, the danger of renewed "Black-Hand" activities by other groups would not be removed if the Secret Service were to relax its vigilance for ever so short a time. The threat of Bolshevism, already flaring upon the horizon, as a menacing torch over murder-maddened mobs defying law and order, would be a welcome brother. In the chaos created, if the Red Bolsheviks should ever succeed in demoralizing this country, the malefactors of the "Black-Hand" Society would thrive as maggots in a cheese. A mixed brand of terrorism would soon show its evil head, a mixed brand that would bring every decent citizen to shudder at the mention of BLACK BOLSHEVISM.

In looking into the motives of the men who represented the Sicilian Mafia, or "Black-Hand" Society, in this country, I was fortunate to elucidate not a few particulars that go to show how these criminals actually operate.

The Black-Handers here would terrorize their less courageous countrymen from the provinces of Southern Italy. They had been at this form of blackmail for some years. Lupo and Morello were the leaders. The money obtained by blackmail and threats of various kinds was divided among a few men, but most of the funds went to Lupo and Morello. As fast as Morello got money he would farm it out by acquiring a barber shop or set up a man in a shoe repairing shop. He also invested in several Italian restaurants. Lupo was in the habit of putting his money into Italian grocery stores. He soon became one of the greatest importers of olive oil and Italian lemons in New York City. It is known that more than $200,000 was accumulated by the two leaders in a few years. This estimate is based on testimony submitted by people who have complained since of the way in which they were terrorized.

Lupo and Morello were an ideal combination to force leadership upon the "Black-Handers" in this country. Morello was the rough, bearish and hairy-looking monster, cruel as a fiend, and always unshaven. Lupo was the well-dressed, soft-spoken, slick-looking "gent" of pretended refinement. He, too, was cruel and heartless. Lupo was the business man of the two. Morello had in his make-up more of the cunning of the born criminal. He was cautious like the fox and ferocious like a maddened bull. Lupo was always suggesting new business ways for the investing of the blackmail money. To Lupo's scheming brain can also be traced the proposition to build a tenement house with such funds as he and Morello could spare from the various barber shops and the importing ventures in which they were interested.

They built one tenement house and sold it at a profit. They built several other tenement houses and likewise sold these at a profit. Every time they would take the money and reinvest in more buildings. It was also at Lupo's suggestion that a scheme was concocted to form an association for building purposes with the object of selling stock in the association to Italians from Southern Italy only and exclusively. The association was called the Ignatz Florio Association of Corleone.

The main purpose of this association was to accumulate sufficient funds to erect two rows of Italian tenements in One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Street and One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Street and Cypress Avenue, in the Bronx. Stock in the association was placed on sale for three dollars and five dollars per share. When the dividends came due, payment was made or the dividend turned over to the account of the holder of the stock. The tenements went up in quick succession.

Lupo and Morello finally succeeded in getting the control of the association entirely in their own hands. They used the funds to develop their business ventures, Morello specializing in barber and shoe shops, Lupo sticking to his olive oil importing enterprise. Some of the contractors who put up the tenements were paid, and some were not. Those who had furnished materials for the buildings received some manner of payment, but there were several who got nothing. Law suits began to threaten the two leaders. The holders of the stock began to inquire rather insistently about dividends.

At this juncture, Lupo and Morello stuck their heads together and hatched a deep-dyed scheme for making counterfeit money. They would establish a large counterfeiting plant. They would take the counterfeit stuff and give it to the stockholders in the association. For every thirty-five cents which the association owed to a holder of stock Morello and Lupo would give one full dollar in counterfeit money. The person receiving the counterfeit money would be obliged to dispose of it according to the directions given by Lupo and Morello, who held themselves competent to instruct the members of the association so that the bad money could be disposed of without risk of arrest. This counterfeiting scheme was hatched in the summer of 1908 in the rear of Morello's evil-smelling, dingy little spaghetti joint.

CHAPTER IV
COUNTERFEIT BILLS APPEAR

In May, 1909, counterfeit two-dollar and five-dollar bills began to appear in many of the large cities, such as New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Chicago and Boston. Some of the bills were distributed as far away as New Orleans. The simultaneous appearance of the bills in so many different cities indicated quite plainly that a large band was operating in the distribution of the bad money.

Ever since Lupo and Morello and his associates were arrested in 1908, and were turned out by the Police Magistrate because there was not sufficient evidence to hold them for the barrel murder, I had not lost sight of them. They were being trailed all the time, day and night. As a result of my watchfulness, I learned many things that have since proven to be very useful to the government in its efforts to keep the counterfeiting of money down to a minimum.

Among other things, I learned that Morello made frequent trips to Chicago and other cities where the counterfeit money seemed to flourish. Morello made a flying trip to New Orleans on one occasion when my men tracked him all the way. When his train arrived in Philadelphia we knew he was on board; when the train reached Baltimore we knew he was on the train, and when he arrived at Washington we knew where the "Black-Hand" leader was; and so on, till he arrived in New Orleans. On his arrival there certain Italian confederates were waiting for him and escorted their chief to a little Italian café where a conference was held in a back room lasting a little longer than two hours. Immediately after the conference was over, Morello took the next train back to New York.

Now enters into the story a man by the name of Antonio Cecala. Remember the name of this man, for he plays an important part in the game for the remainder of the story. Cecala, whom we will establish here as the third executive bandit in the Lupo-Morello group, made trips to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Buffalo. Cecala proved a valuable aid to the two "Black-Hand" captains.

Lupo was tracked by Secret Service men to cities where the counterfeit money was circulating. Another thread of investigation disclosed the not unimportant fact that there were members of the Ignatz Florio Association scattered all over the United States, especially in the populous centers where the five- and two-dollar counterfeit bills were being circulated. Besides, I was getting information daily from banks and merchants that the bills were being "pushed on the market" in abundance. I also learned that Italians from Corleone, Sicily, were the only Italians who were trusted in these centers by the Morello-Lupo gang, pointing to the probability that the bad bills were being circulated and "pushed" through native Corleonians exclusively.

Another clue showed that the bills were being manufactured somewhere in the immediate vicinity of New York City. I fine-combed the State of New York upon learning this. Naturally, my attention was focused on the Corleone Italians in New York City. In this way I gathered that Lupo had fled from his creditors, to whom he owed money in connection with his Italian grocery stores business. I finally succeeded in locating him living in Ardonia, New York, which is not very far from Highland on the Hudson River.

Past experience with these Morello-Lupo counterfeiters had taught me not to make an arrest until I had the net completely woven around the men who made the money. It is futile to arrest the "pushers-of-the-queer" – that is, the men who distribute the bad money among the little Italian grocery stores and shoe shops, small merchants, and the like. The arrest of these men only serves to warn the manufacturers of the bad money that the Secret Service is on the trail. The factory then closes down, and it is moved away to another location. Even if a conviction of the distributor of the bad money is obtained, no definite information can be obtained from the convicted man. He could not tell the government anything of value even if he wished to "squeal." As a rule, all that a "pusher" or distributor can tell is where he got the bad money.

Here is where Antonio Cecala looms up as a very important criminal factor in the counterfeiting game as plied by the Black-Handers under the leadership of Lupo and Morello. Remember this: Lupo and Morello always remain in the background. Cecala was the connecting link between the two leaders and the "pushers-of-the-queer."

Cecala was the man who got in touch with those who wanted to buy the counterfeit money to circulate it at the rate of thirty-five cents on the dollar.

Cecala was careful to deal only with men whom he knew – men who were from Corleone. He would pick six of these as his deputies. These deputies would choose six others, and so on. Cecala made business trips to other cities and took the orders for counterfeit money. He also had the say as to whom should be the agent in each city directly responsible to him. These various deputies were required to give their O. K. before any money would be sent to or given to any person by Cecala.

As soon as Cecala would receive a request from a deputy for money to be passed to certain Italians asking for it, it was Cecala's job to go to Lupo and Morello and obtain their sanction before the money would be handed along down the line from the distributing plant to the person buying it at thirty-five cents on the dollar for the obvious purpose of "pushing" it off on some unwary store-keeper.

The reader can now readily appreciate that with a crafty organization like this the "pusher" could not testify, even if he desired, that he had got the bad money from either Lupo or Morello. In fact, the "pusher" never even heard of either of the leaders except in some indirect way. Always, however, when the money was passed over to the pusher by one of Cecala's deputies or remote subordinates a sinister warning was given not to "squeal" if caught – a warning always portentous with the threat of murder.

To "squeal" meant fatal punishment. The man in the barrel is grim testimony to that fact.

At about this time I had pretty good evidence that the leaders of the counterfeiting gang were none other than Morello and Lupo, as I had suspected from the outset. Still, the time was not ripe to make arrests that would result in dead-sure convictions. It is true the two leaders could be arrested and charged with the making of these counterfeit notes, but where was the evidence connecting them with either the passing or the manufacture of the bills?

Let me here recite the case of Giuseppe Boscarini just to help the reader appreciate how very difficult it would be, at that juncture, to get Lupo and Morello involved in a way that would satisfy a court and jury that they were legally guilty of making and of passing counterfeit money:

While in Pittston, Pa., I learned that a man in that city named Sam Locino knew Boscarini, a New York agent of the Black-Hand Society. After talking with Locino for some time he told me that Boscarini had made several trips to Pittston lately, and that Boscarini was willing to sell counterfeit money to him. When Locino mentioned Boscarini's name I felt sure that the Pittston man was talking of one of Cecala's most active deputies.

In order to see how far Locino could go with Boscarini, and whether Cecala's deputy would turn counterfeit money over to Locino, I made the latter write a letter in the Sicilian dialect to Boscarini asking the deputy of Cecala to send a sample of the counterfeit money in order that Locino might see what it was like and whether he thought he would be able to get rid of some of it in Pittston.

When Locino had finished the letter I took it over to the post office, and with the Mayor of the city and the Chief of Police as witnesses I had the letter registered and addressed to Boscarini. I came back on the same train that brought the letter to New York, and when Boscarini signed for it at the registry window, this act of his was noted down by men of the Secret Service.

The next day Boscarini went to a sub post office on the Bowery and bought a special delivery and a two-cent stamp. He placed the stamps upside down on a large white envelope. An agent of the Service saw him buy the stamps and place them on the envelope; also, the agent saw the fictitious return address which Boscarini put on the envelope: the agent saw this as Boscarini put the letter into the slot at the sub-station.

I returned to Pittston on the same train with the letter and notified Locino that the letter was addressed to him at the General Delivery. He got the letter and opened it in my presence. It contained a counterfeit two-dollar bill and a counterfeit five-dollar bill of the kind made by the Morello gang.

Then I sent Locino to New York and gave him thirty-five dollars with which to buy one hundred dollars' worth of the counterfeit money from Boscarini. I saw to it that the genuine money was secretly marked for the purpose of "getting" it on some member of the gang when the raid would come and in which I contemplated taking Morello and Lupo together with Cecala, Boscarini and others.

Locino contrived to meet Boscarini at Mulberry and Prince Streets, and the two talked it over. An appointment was made by Boscarini to meet Locino again on the same day.

One of the things I had ferreted out meanwhile was to locate the headquarters for the distribution of the bad money as being at No. 231 East Ninety-seventh Street. Secret Service men had hired apartments across the street from this place, and were watching every one that entered and left the place. Their view was interfered with by great boxes of macaroni and other Italian groceries piled high in the windows of the store. My men also learned that it was here, behind the macaroni boxes, that secret conferences were being held between Cecala, Morello, Lupo and others. A conference would never last more than fifteen minutes. The store was run by Morello, Lupo and others. It was a wholesale store. The small Italian grocers in New York were compelled to make their purchases there at the peril of being wrecked by a bomb if they did not. To this store went Boscarini when he left Locino at Mulberry and Prince Streets. At the Ninety-seventh Street store Boscarini met Cecala and several others of the gang. Returning to meet Locino, Boscarini handed over a roll of bills to the Pittston man. Secret Service men saw the bills handed over. Locino handed the bills to me. When the bills were examined they were found to be counterfeits of the same make as those previously sent to Locino in the letter.

Even then we made no arrest. It would have been a foolish piece of business at that time, for I was busy on other ends of the case pulling in valuable threads of evidence. After the lapse of a week Locino came to New York from Pittston and purchased more of the counterfeit money from Boscarini, giving in return genuine money, which was secretly marked.

Finally the time arrived when the government had evidence which was deemed sufficient to convict most of the band. The raid was made. When Cecala was seized and searched there was found on him two of the genuine bills with the secret marks which I had placed on the bills given to Locino.

Locino's testimony, the reader will see, was necessary in order to secure a conviction of Boscarini and Cecala. By Locino's telling what part he had played in the game the government was put in position to verify the following complete chain of evidence: Locino writing the letter to Boscarini and asking for the counterfeit samples; Boscarini receiving the letter, and receipting for it; Boscarini posting the answering letter to Locino, the letter on which the Secret Service man saw the stamps placed upside down on the long white envelope. Then, further, Locino receiving the letter at the General Delivery, and his opening it in my presence and finding the counterfeit two- and five-dollar bills. Locino could testify that he got counterfeit money from Boscarini and had given him the genuine money secretly marked in return for the spurious bills, thus directly connecting Boscarini with the charge of passing spurious money. Also, Locino could verify my testimony of secret marks being placed on the bills, so that when the marked bills were found on Cecala, Locino could identify them as the ones he had given to Boscarini in return for the counterfeit money passed by Boscarini to him. Locino could thus connect Boscarini and Cecala. Other evidence connecting Cecala with Boscarini was in my possession, but which I need not give here. It merely served to corroborate the testimony of Locino.

Locino was perfectly well aware what it meant to go on the witness stand and "squeal." He had heard of the man in the barrel. After some weeks of thinking the matter over Locino loosened up and declared that he had an ancient wrong to right! He never explained to me further just what his grievance against the "Black-Handers" was. He finally made up his mind to take the stand and tell what he knew.

Needless to say that Boscarini was sentenced to fifteen years in the Federal Penitentiary at Atlanta, Georgia. But it is worth mentioning here that shortly after Boscarini received his sentence Locino was shot twice in the back of the head at Pittston. He survived, however, and is confident that he will be able to take care of himself for many years to come.

The point I want to make clear by relating this story of facts is as follows:

I traced the connection of Cecala with the passing of these counterfeit bills by finding the genuine money with the secret marks on him. Nevertheless, I had not reached the leaders, Lupo and Morello, who were still in the background serenely confident that they could not be legally implicated in the passing or the manufacturing of the counterfeit bills.

True, we could prove that Cecala and Morello and Lupo had met many times, and that they had been to the houses of one another and eaten at the same table. Other evidence of a like nature could be produced; but such evidence was not sufficient to convict the two leaders of the charge of either passing, having in their possession, making or causing to be made, any of the counterfeit notes which were being poured into the great centers of population at one and the same time. Had I stopped with Locino's testimony, I never could have got the leaders. But the Secret Service never leaves the trail of the counterfeiter, and the way in which the long arm of the government reached out for the "Black-Hand" leaders, who loomed in the shadowy distance like the silhouettes of devils incarnate, will be told here for the first time.

CHAPTER V
THE GREENHORN'S STORY

In the latter part of June, 1907, a young Italian landed in New York from the southern part of Italy. He was an ambitious sort of clever chap. He not only spoke his mother tongue well, but he had a good command of Spanish and French and was posted on several of the dialects current in the "boot" or southern part of Italy. He knew very little of the English tongue, however. Among his various accomplishments he was also a practical printer.

The career of this young man up to the time of his landing at Ellis Island is significant, to say the least. He was a native of the little town of Cananzero in Calabria, one of the provinces of southern Italy. He had been a teacher there and had taught technical subjects. Later on he taught in private, and finally became an instructor in government schools. From Italy he had gone to Brazil, where he spent seven years of his time. He had engaged in teaching school there, and he had also worked at the printing trade in Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil. At one time he had been engaged by the Italian Consul at Rio de Janeiro to assist that official in legal matters.

The young man's name was Antonio Viola Comito.

In course of time he proved to be the connecting link that joined the chain of evidence identifying Lupo and Morello legally and inseparately with the counterfeiting gang which manufactured and distributed the counterfeit money in the summer of 1909. His own story in full, which has never been made public before, is given here. This story of his contains many statements which ought to interest the public, statements that were not divulged by Comito even at the trial where he was the pivot upon which turned the conviction of the most notorious and troublesome band of counterfeiters this country ever knew. As a result of his damaging evidence, the gang vowed to destroy him. He has changed his identity completely meanwhile, however, and was last heard from in South America, where he is very prosperous. He has a good deal more courage than his own story, as told by him, would indicate. He will never be reached by the Black-Hand gang without several of them paying with their lives for his. He is confident of that.

Comito's own story follows:

"The reader will pardon me, if, in reading this story of my life in New York, there are errors of language and periods not well expressed.

"During the latter part of 1908 and a good part of 1909, I had occasion to know many malefactors who horrified me from the very start, and whom I gradually came to fear as I studied their brutal character. I refrained from denouncing these men to the police because I was constantly in danger of losing my life had I done so.

"These men were the leaders of the notorious 'Black-Hand' Society, which spreads terror among the Italians all over the United States. While among them I studied the badness, the power, the brutality and the arrogance of the counterfeiter and the assassin.

"They were not a very civil lot. They were villains incarnate. One of their characteristic traits is that one alone would not commit a crime because of cowardice. When a 'job' was to be executed it was always carried out by three or four directed by a 'corporal,' who was put in charge by the head bandit. This 'corporal' bossed the job, remaining all the while in the distance so that in case the operations of those committing the deed were discovered by the police the 'corporal' would be sure to escape and report the circumstances to the head bandit of the society. The head bandit would in turn notify all the other members, when a counsel would be called at which steps would be taken to aid those apprehended by the police.

"What puzzled me not a little was the fact that when it came to going to trial for an offense no eye-witness would ever appear in court to tell of the crime with which the members under arrest might be charged. Those arrested usually gave fictitious names, and when placed on trial they were always freed. These men governed their association by secret orders. They operated on a vast scale and extended their crime even to the kidnapping of little children."

At this point Comito enters a long apology to those people of Southern Italy who are good citizens and law-abiding. He does not refer in this article, he says, to the honest Sicilians, who labor and earn their living honestly. It is of the malefactors, he says, that he speaks.

Comito then tells of entering New York and meeting his brother at the Battery. He relates his sensations at seeing the tall buildings of New York and the hurrying crowds in the noisy streets.

After going to the home of his brother in Bleecker Street, Comito says:

"During the dinner I was carefully advised by my uncle, an intelligent man and very cautious, having served the Italian government for twelve years as non-commissioned officer in the line infantry. He said, 'Do not acquire bad friendships. Be careful of traps that strangers may lay for you. There exists in New York a band of malefactors which bear the name of Black-Hand. Every day this band commits crimes, assassinating persons, setting fire to houses, breaking in doors, exploding bombs, and kidnapping children.'

"He told me also never to tell any one where I worked and how much I earned. He advised me to think only of bettering my condition and that of my family, because in America, in time, the man with a good will can acquire a good position."

Perhaps these words that follow may be of interest to the reader in getting an insight into the mentality of the newly arrived immigrant. Says Comito:

"My only wish was to work and put aside something; to economize, and so help the condition of my family and provide some day for my daughter that she might have a profession. I did not think of evil, and hoped from day to day to find occupation. I was a printer, and, though I did not know English, I felt confident of finding work in some Italian printing-office."

Comito then tells of finding employment in the Italian printing house of M. Dassori, at No. 178 Park Row, where he was getting along well. He tells of sending money to Italy to his wife and children. He tells of his brother here introducing him to honest Italians of the working class and of how he joined the order of the Sons of Italy and also the Foresters of America. Comito then relates his rapid rise in the Foresters, mentioning also how he became Supreme Deputy of the Order of the Sons of Italy, besides being chosen a member for the Congress of Italians abroad, which was held in Rome in 1908. He dwells on his losing employment because of lack of work in the place where he was employed. After getting employment again he finds himself once more out of a place, about the beginning of September, 1908. He tells very frankly of taking up with a lady named Caterina and how they shared the apartment which he furnished as well as his means afforded. He and Caterina lived together, he says, "respecting one another as husband and wife." Describing his affair with Caterina, who, by the way, enters in some measure into the counterfeiting story, Comito says:

"I, together with Caterina, lived agreeably, and what was earned weekly was divided equally, and we did not take into account which earned the more or the less. We made an honest front with friends. I discharged my duties with the societies with zeal."

CHAPTER VI
DON PASQUALE, BLACK-HAND SKIRMISHER

Here is where Comito gets into touch with a skirmisher, if I may use the word, of the Black-Handers. The skirmisher is the scout for Lupo and Morello who are, as usual, in the distance, their minds ablaze with the idea of getting rich beyond the dreams of Aladdin by a bold counterfeiting stroke. Comito is a printer out of work. Lupo and Morello have agents who tell them of such things. Comito might be the man to run a printing press and print the counterfeit bills. And so, I will turn you over to Comito. Listen to his own story once more:

"On the evening of November 5, 1908, I was at a meeting of the Order of the Sons of Italy, being a duty I owed the society as Supreme Deputy to attend the meetings of the different lodges. As was the custom toward the end of the meeting I chatted with the various members of the order, some of whom I knew by name and others whom I knew only by sight.

"That same night a member by the name of Don Pasquale, a Sicilian, came to me, clasped my hand, and without further ceremony said: 'Professor, will you take a walk with me? I have something to say that might interest you.'

"When we were outside, Don Pasquale said to me:

"'I know you are seeking work and that you are a good printer. A friend of mine is proprietor of a printing shop in Philadelphia. If you wish I can recommend you; but you must go to Philadelphia to work.'

"'It makes no difference to me where I work,'" was Comito's answer.

Don Pasquale got Comito's address and said that he would arrange to have his Philadelphia printer friend meet Comito at the latter's home. Comito then explains that the title "Don" is used by Sicilians as a mark of respect among the working class, and that the word "Uncle" is employed in addressing people advanced in years in the same sense.

Comito recalls the knock on his door on the morning of November 6. He says:

"I opened and saw Don Pasquale with his friend. I motioned them to enter and sit down. Don Pasquale said: 'Mr. Comito, I present to you my friend, Don Antonio Cecala, proprietor of a printing shop in Philadelphia.'

"'Are you a printer?' asked Cecala.

"'Yes,' I answered.

"'Well,' he continued, 'I am the proprietor of a shop in Philadelphia and in need of a trustworthy man who can take care of my affairs when I am absent looking out for my business as an inspector of Singer Sewing Machines. You can come to an agreement with me and establish yourself with your wife in Philadelphia. In that way I can be sure of your honesty,' said Cecala to me.

"'But,' I replied, 'I don't think that I am going to your printing shop to act as boss. You have other men that work there?'

"'Yes, there are other men, but they are not capable for the trade I have because they do not do this kind of work.'

"And saying this, Cecala showed me some money order blanks, stamped envelopes, commercial papers and some hand bills. I replied that it was just such work that I could do, and that if the men employed by him were not able to do such work they were not printers.

"'Well, as you are a practical man at such work, you may remain alone in the shop and will assume full responsibility. Therefore, prepare your things and tell your Mrs. not to continue working. However, if she wants to work in Philadelphia, then she may do so. Together you will soon be rich.'"

Cecala agreed to pay the rent due for the rooms occupied by Comito and his mistress, besides what he owed elsewhere. The weekly salary was agreed upon, and in the event that Comito should not care to remain at the job he was to receive his return fare to New York.

The reader will appreciate the humor of this arrangement as he gets along further in the story.

"'Then you wish that the lady come with me?'

"'Surely. The lady is necessary for you.'

"'But don't you want me to go first and find a house to live in?'

"'There is no need of that. The house is ready. It is my property.'

"'When you say that you will provide for everything, I am ready to leave to-morrow.'

"In the evening Caterina came home from work. I told her what had happened. She did not care to leave her work, adding that we were without means and could not afford to undertake the trip. I assured her, however, that all expenses would be paid, and she finally consented to come along. We prepared the household furnishings for shipment, Cecala insisting that we take all the stuff with us."

Comito then tells of being taken to a photo-material store. Cecala bought a camera, some plates, bath platters, chemicals, a tripod, paper, and a case. Comito was induced to go to the printing house, where he had been formerly employed, and make a "dicker" for the purchase of a printing press. The press was secured and everything was made ready for the trip to Philadelphia. Then Cecala called and introduced a certain "Don Turi," otherwise Cina, as his godfather. "He is a rich proprietor in Philadelphia," said Cecala. "Do not mind his ordinary clothes; he is a man of gentle manners." Comito's own description of the rough looking Cina adds a streak of humor to the situation. As to "gentle manners" Cina almost maimed Comito when he shook hands with him. Comito was also introduced to a fellow by the name of Sylvester.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon on the same day that the whole pack of them – Cecala, Cina, Don Pasquale and Sylvester – rushed into the little apartment of Comito, and, as he says, "without any talking, began to label the furniture." This move was made after Cecala had paid the rent that morning.

Comito had not put any address on his stuff because Cecala had assured him that all the furniture would be put on a wagon, and that the wagon and all would go under his name to Philadelphia. Comito observed a bundle labeled: "A. Cina, Highland, New York."

Turning to Cecala, he said: "Don't we go to Philadelphia?"

"A – ha, ha, ha – a, ha, a, ha, ha, ha, ha," leered Cecala. "This is the place the boat stops and then we go twenty minutes by foot. Have no fear; we will go by carriage."

"Do we not go by rail?"

"No," grunted Cecala. "It costs too much, and we cannot load all your goods on the train."

Upon inquiring what time Cecala expected to arrive at Philadelphia, Comito was informed about eight o'clock, and that it would be all the better to arrive after dark because "no one will see what we are doing, and we will give an accounting to no one." Cecala also assured Comito that there would be no delay once they got off the boat, but that they would hurry to Cecala's house where "we will eat and drink wine and warm ourselves."

In this manner Comito's fears were lulled to sleep by the promises of future prosperity that were held out to him. There would never be any more worry or struggle for gain as far as Comito was concerned, according to the assurances of Cecala and the others. Life would flow along like a pleasant dream with no worries of any kind!

"It was about 4:30 P. M. of that same day, November 11, 1908, when I and Caterina, together with Cecala, Cina, Don Pasquale and Sylvester, went on board the boat," continues Comito. "I was fully convinced that we were going to Philadelphia. I was quite happy thinking that by working honestly I would prosper. When we were about two hours out from the pier Cecala came to me and said:

"'Mr. Comito, we are about to make a bad showing.'

"'Why?' I asked.

"'Because I have not enough money to pay the fares of all of us.'

"'Why pay for all?'

"'Because they are my friends, and my godfather. Then, too, you saw how they worked.'

"'But they could have remained in New York.'

"'No. They will help put up the press, etc.'

"'This is just a circumstance,' explained Cecala. 'I imagined that Cina had money to spare, but he has forgotten his pocketbook. We are short five dollars.'

"Not knowing what to do about it, I remained silent. After a while Cecala turned to Caterina and inquired: 'Mrs., have you any money with you?'

"'I have just five dollars,' Caterina replied innocently.

"'Well, give it to me because I need it. I will give it back to-morrow, as soon as I get to the house,' suggested the bandit.

"Caterina stepped aside and produced a five-dollar bill from her stocking where she had hidden it for an emergency.

"I took Caterina aside and asked her why she had given the money to Cecala. She said it would be all right, that she would get it back to-morrow. I did not talk any more. I took a rest on a lounge, until about nine o'clock, when I heard the boat's whistle. It was the signal of our approaching a dock. I jumped up, thinking I was at Philadelphia, and woke Caterina. I was surprised when Cecala informed me that Philadelphia was a little farther on, and that we would get off at the next stop. Making further inquiries as to the location of Philadelphia, I was informed in a very brutal manner by Cina that he did not know when the boat would arrive, but he guessed about one o'clock. Right then and there it dawned on me that I was not dealing with honest people, but with a dangerous pack who were probably trying to get me into a trap.

"When Caterina heard that we would not arrive until one A. M., she spoke cross to me and said that if any harm came to her I was responsible. I consoled her as well as I could and resumed my rest on the lounge.

"It was about half-past twelve that night when a long, resounding toot that echoed in the mountains announced our arrival at a stopping place. When the deck hand announced the name of the place, which did not sound very much like Philadelphia, I asked Cecala whether we should go ashore here.

"He said yes.

"It was a freezing cold night. There was snow on the ground. Caterina and I were chilled to the bone and very nervous.

"'We will all stop at my godfather's for the night, and, if necessary, for a day or so until we are rested,' announced Cecala. 'From there we will continue our trip to Philadelphia, which is one station beyond this place. We will do the rest of the journey by wagon.

"'This is Highland,¹ New York,' said Cecala, when I inquired the name of the place.

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1

Highland is about seven miles from Ardonia, New York, where the reader will remember I had discovered Lupo was in hiding after he ran away from his creditors.

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