Of the enormous sums turned over to Ammon Miller received nothing save the money necessary for his support in Montreal, for the lawyers who defended him, and five dollars per week for his wife and child up to the time he turned State’s evidence.  It is interesting to note that among the counsel representing Miller upon his trial was Ammon himself.  Miller’s wife and child were not sent to Montreal by Ammon, nor did the latter secure bail for his client at any time during his different periods of incarceration.  The colonel knew very well that it was a choice between himself and Miller and took no steps which might necessitate the election falling upon himself.

The conviction of Miller, with his sentence to ten years in State’s prison did not, however, prevent the indictment of Ammon for receiving stolen money in New York County, although the chance that he would ever have to suffer for his crime seemed small indeed.  The reader must bear in mind that up to the time of Ammon’s trial Miller had never admitted his guilt; that he was still absolutely, and apparently irrevocably, under Ammon’s sinister influence, keeping in constant communication with him and implicitly obeying his instructions while in prison; and that Miller’s wife and child were dependent upon Ammon for their daily bread.  No wonder Ammon strode the streets confident that his creature would never betray him.

“Now, Billy, you don’t want to be shooting off your mouth up here,” was his parting injunction to his dupe on his final visit to Sing Sing before he became a guest there himself at the expense of the People.

Miller followed his orders to the letter, and the stipend was increased to the munificent sum of forty dollars per month.

Meantime the case against Ammon languished and the District Attorney of New York County was at his wits’ end to devise a means to procure the evidence to convict him.  To do this it would be necessary to establish affirmatively that the thirty thousand five hundred dollars received by Ammon from Miller and deposited with Wells, Fargo & Co. was the identical money stolen by Miller from the victims of the Franklin Syndicate.  It was easy enough to prove that Miller stole hundreds of thousands of dollars, that Ammon received hundreds of thousands, but you had to prove that the same money stolen by Miller passed to the hands of Ammon.  Only one man in the world, as Ammon had foreseen, could supply this last necessary link in the chain of evidence and he was a convict—­and mute.

It now became the task of the District Attorney to induce Miller to confess the truth and take the stand against Ammon.  He had been in prison a considerable time and his health was such as to necessitate his being transferred to the hospital ward.  Several of the District Attorney’s assistants visited him at various times at Sing Sing in the hope of being able to persuade him to turn State’s evidence, but all their efforts were in vain.  Miller refused absolutely to say anything that would tend to implicate Ammon.