Case Finally "Fixed."
McDonald was arrested, and the Dock company also proceeded against him civilly, as it was not certain he could be held on a criminal charge owing to the guarded manner in which he had conducted his operation. McDonald was put under bail of $60,000, and, being unable to supply it, remained in jail for several months. Things were finally "fixed" all right, though. A few days before his trial he was released from jail, John Corcoran and Alderman Tom Foley going on his bail bond.
The trial was a farce. All the gamblers, "con" men, bunko steerers and strong-arm men in Chicago lined up in court and told how the defaulting clerk had begged to be permitted to play the brace game, with tears in his eyes, and that most of his money had been spent on wine, women and song. The jury solemnly declared McDonald innocent.
The expense of his trial on the charge of stealing the Dock company's $30,000 had made McDonald poor, and he had to get out and do a little "hustling." Soon after his release from the county jail John Donaldson, a California gambler and a high roller, made a winning in McDonald's place of $2,200 at poker. He took the money back to the hotel with him and was robbed of it and $500 besides before he had been in bed ten minutes.
A cracksman by the name of Travers was convicted of the crime.
Donaldson used to go to Joliet every day or two to interview Travers. Finally he came back from Joliet and never ate nor slept until he had run McDonald down. Tweaking his nose he shouted:
"Travers has confessed. You are a thief. You are a coward. Within twenty minutes after I was robbed you were dividing my $2,700 with Travers and his pal."
McDonald did not deny the charge or strike back at Donaldson, as the latter apparently hoped he would. Donaldson was a slight man, almost dead with consumption, but he was famous as a man killer, and while with one hand he tweaked McDonald's nose, the other hand was jammed down in his coat pocket, and McDonald knew that if he made a move or said a word he was a dead man.
Donaldson's hatred for McDonald became a mania with him. He was a doomed man, anyhow, and he wanted to kill McDonald before he went. So for the three years before death finally claimed him he would drag himself about the streets until he could stand in front of his enemy and slap him in the face and curse him, and beg him to raise his hand or say a word, or give him the slightest pretext for killing him. It was a great relief to McDonald when grim death finally claimed Donaldson.