Pending these researches and the arrival of a reply by post to my request at length for more detailed instruction as to certain negotiations which I had entered into, I went into the Adirondack woods for ten days, a movement which proved how closely I was watched by the Irish agents.  Since my early knowledge of that wilderness, a railroad had been built through it, and to see the portion through which it passed—­a section far from my old haunts—­I followed it as far as “Paul Smith’s Hotel,” on the northern edge of the woods, and then took a boat across the lake country, reaching “Martin’s,” on the south, near my former camping-grounds.  Two days later an Irishman arrived at “Martin’s” from “Paul Smith’s,” in a buggy.  As I had made no secret of my destination in leaving Smith’s, having no suspicion of being shadowed, and quite indifferent to it if attempted, I suspected at once that our Hibernian guest was on my track.  He brought with him an old army carbine, but as it was the close season for the deer, and the arm was rusty and unfit for sporting uses, I was confirmed in my suspicions that his business was with any person who might come to hold a conference with me.  Finding that no one came to meet me, he grew friendly and, under the influence of the good whiskey plentiful there, confidential.  He pretended to have served in the Federal cavalry during the War of Secession, and that the carbine was his accustomed weapon; but one day when well soaked with whiskey he was induced to come out and join in a shooting match, when we found that he actually did not know how to fire at a mark, and it was evident that his employers considered that a revolver would be a greater danger to him than to the man he was expected to punish, and so had provided him with a safer weapon.  I kept him pretty drunk for two or three days, and he told us frankly that he was employed usually in carrying messages between New York and Ireland.  There remained no question that his business was to take care of any traitor to the cause who might have been so incautious as to meet me in secret, and the caution of my detective that my life was in danger if I entered personally into negotiation with Sheridan was shown to be justified.

As the negotiations had showed me that the members of the party were not all incorruptible, and as I had learned that Tynan, who was then in New York, and who was supposed to be the famous No. 1, was conversant with all the facts relating to the murder in Phoenix Park, I suggested to my friend the principal detective that I should make Tynan a direct bid for the information we wanted, offering an ample compensation.  He replied that Tynan was incorruptible, and that my proposition would most probably be regarded as an insult which he would resent by a revolver bullet, “and,” he added, “in the present state of politics here, no jury could be found which would convict him of murder.”