work for it for nothing, do you ? I want you to find this woman who is travelling and figuring as a Confederate agent. Some of my people have been on her track for a long time, but she is a slippery customer, and they have never been able to lay hands on her."
I knew it was myself Baker meant, especially when he took out of his pocket a picture similar to the one the detective had shown me on the cars a number of months previous.
Baker continued. "Here is her picture; you can take it, for I am having some more struck off. I am going to capture her ladyship this time, dead certain, if she is in the country, as I believe she is."
My sensations on hearing Baker utter these words cannot be described. What could make" him so eager to capture me just at this particular moment? Could he possibly suspect me of having anything to do with the assassination plot? The very idea of such a thing made me sick, for I felt that, excited as every one then was, an accusation of this kind was all but equivalent to a condemnation. I managed, however, to maintain my composure, but inwardly resolved that the best thing I could do would be to leave the country at the earliest possible moment.
After discussing the method of procedure with regard to the search I was to institute for myself, I asked Baker what he thought the result of the trial of the prisoners accused of being implicated in the assassination plot would be.
"O," said he, "they will all hang."
"Now, I think that will be too bad. Even if Mrs. Surratt is proven to be guilty, they might commute her sentence. It will be a terrible thing to hang a woman, especially as she was not actually one of the assassins. Do you really think she is guilty?"
"No; but the affair was planned in her house, and she is in a good part responsible for it. I am very much in hope that a full confession from her will be obtained by her priest."
"But, colonel, the evidence against her is all circumstantial, and surely it is not right or lawful to sentence her to death, unless it is absolutely proven that she is guilty."
"In times like .this, it would never do to acquit her, or to send her to prison, for the mob would take the law into their own hands. Besides, it is necessary to make an example."
Baker's friend here said, "I am glad that they got Booth."
At this remark I scanned Baker's countenance closely. He
