Page:Memoirs of the United States Secret Service.djvu/69

 skillfully to meet plot with plot, and cunning by cunning, the wily operator contrived to elude the grasp of those who sought to circumvent or secure him. "I have amassed a deal of plunder," he declared to us, "but I have paid away over $70,000 first and last,in good money, to escape the clutches of the law."

He managed his business with system. "I always had bogus money in plenty," he asserts, "when others had none. And thus I controlled the market for 'coney,' you see, very frequently. They had to come to me for it. I could always supply the right men (and I had a choice) with counterfeit notes,in quantity—for I engraved and printed the notes, or wrought the dies, myself."

For some time McCartney kept a Daguerreian gallery (under the name of Warren) in a western city. His experience in the use of chemicals was in this way improved.

After quitting the Photograph business, he purchased a livery stable, at Rolla, Mo. There came to his place, "on the sly," one day, a man whom he quickly recognized as a former acquaintance, who knew all about Mac's Springfield experience, and who wished to hire a horse and carriage. "I saw through this at a glance," observed Pete. "This fellow was after me. I told him I would drive the horse to his hotel at once. He went back, I took what loose money I had in the till, jumped out at the back window, and left Rolla and my would-be patron behind me. He did not pull me!"

McCartney's tracks were followed up, however, and from time to time he was arrested—but as often escaped, in some mysterious and inexplicable manner. He was always ready to pay roundly for his liberty, when cornered; and once or twice he gave up counterfeit plates and money he controlled, when such a show of repentance or desire to make restitution would best serve his own purposes. But it was a