Page:Memoirs of the United States Secret Service.djvu/158

Rh Adams would have been taken out of the hands of the Maine authorities, had Felker's plan worked as he plotted to have it, and both these knaves would probably have escaped the justice that in the end was meted out to only one of them. Brockway was let up, (as we have shown,) at that time, but Adams was not given up by the Maine Court, and went to the State Prison afterwards, as he deserved. Thus Felker did not make "that frog jump" as he intended and hoped to do!

A dastardly attempt was subsequently made to take the life of Allan Pinkerton, of the "Western Detective Agency" at Detroit, Mich. George Barry, the noted assassin, openly charges Felker with being connected with this foul plot. Barry confessed that he was urged to this infernal job by Felker himself, who supplied him freely with money, and promised "stool-pigeon" testimony to clear him of complicity in this base act, provided he (Barry) "would give Pinkerton his quietus."

The cause of Felker's personal bitterness towards Pinkerton, was found in the fact that this accomplished officer opposed Felker in his continuous plots of villainy in the Northwest; for he was largely instrumental in blocking Felker's schemes to protect the villains who rioted in that region for a time; and whom Pinkerton pursued unrelentingly to justice, first and last, in spite of Felker's efforts to shelter the knaves. Among these criminals so hunted down, the Reno brothers were conspicuous; and their final arrest was the "last straw" that broke the camel's back in Felker's estimation.

He resolved that Pinkerton should be put out of the way. The assassin who undertook this work directly was twice captured, but escaped. A third arrest was more successful. Then Barry confessed the conspiracy, and swore that Felker