that I looked forward to this interview. I did not know him then as well as I did subsequently, or I would scarcely have been so much afraid of him. It did not take me a very great while to discover that he was not a prodigy of astuteness, but at this time, as the reader is aware, I had had comparatively little to do with him. I knew that if he was not sharp he ought to have been, holding the position that he did, and I also knew that I had good cause to dread falling into his hands, or even being suspected by him. Not only were some of the members of his corps eagerly looking for me, but I was about engaging in a particularly hazardous enterprise which it would have made Baker's fortune to have gotten an inkling of, and I did not know even presuming that Baker himself was unaware of the fact that I was a Confederate spy how soon he or some of his men might succeed in identifying me with the troublesome woman they were searching for, or how soon they might discover something about the plot which I was aiding to carry out. The situation, therefore, was a delicate one for me, for much more than my own safety was dependent upon the chief of the United States secret service continuing in the belief that I was exactly what I represented myself to be, and retaining his confidence in me.
Thus far, to be sure, I had been able to detect nothing in Colonel Baker's manner to indicate that his suspicions were excited in the least, although I had watched him narrowly. But, as I knew that, as a detective, it was a part of his business to mask his thoughts and feelings, and not to give even a shadow of a hint that he had been preparing a trap until the moment he was ready to spring it and secure his victim, I felt that I could not place too much reliance on his friendly looks and behavior. On the other hand, I had much confidence in my own power of reading character and detecting motives, and, in watching Colonel Baker, during my late interviews with him, I was not working in the dark, as I might have been doing under some circumstances. I knew that there was good reason to believe not only that he might suspect me, but that he might be possessed of accurate information about me, and I accordingly studied his behavior towards me from this stand point. The result was a reasonable conviction with regard to my present safety, and yet nothing like a feeling of absolute certainty. As for the future, I, of course, could know nothing as to what that would bring forth, but was prepared to venture everything.
