Page:Memoirs of the United States Secret Service.djvu/98

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BILL GURNEY
81

ner, and it is only after a lengthened interview, (during which he ascertains to his apparent satisfaction from Jake that he too has but lately left prison,) that he gives him encouragement. But having informed the big dealer that he was "copped" two years previously, as a "boodle carrier," and showed him plainly that he was "up to snuff," the former appoints a time and place to deliver him a bundle of "new stock," at twenty cents on the dollar.

He thus purchases $500 more of the queer for $100 good money, directly at first hands, and goes his way. A week afterwards, he finds the dealer again, and arranges for a fresh pile. The dealer in the counterfeits then agrees to deliver him $3,000 of the bogus notes for $18 per hundred. The time named is evening, the place of meeting at the Tenth Street Ferry, on the East River. And "Jake Buck," (who is really one of the Chief's Detectives,) reports progress forthwith at head-quarters.

At the appointed hour—having thus managed already to have purchased several hundred dollars' worth of trash directly from this leading vendor's own hands, he repairs to the Ferry House, to receive $3,000 more of the same sort, in the same denomination of $20's, of which his temporary pal, (the recently released prisoner) has also procured and sold to him several smaller similar sums; and the Chief, with another Assistant, happens to be opportunely near by the spot of this last appointed meeting.

But the big dealer knows the Chief and his Deputies, and he isn't to be "caught nappiug." He's too chary a bird for that! So he comes to the Ferry House and looks cautiously about him. He sees "Jake," but there are other strangers round. He recognizes none others whom he has seen before, however—for the Colonel and his other man simply represent a plain looking parson, and a slightly in-