"How would it do to get the axe from the barn?" he asked; "the one that had blood on it when it was found."
"That was chickens' blood," quickly replied Bucholz, "and it will not do. No, you must get an old axe from some other place and bury it with the clothes."
Sommers promised to comply with all these things, and on leaving the prisoner for that day his frame of mind had considerably improved, and thoughts of a suspicious character were entirely dissipated.
The anonymous letters were soon prepared, and it was arranged that they should be sent to San Francisco, Cal., and be remailed from there to Mr. Olmstead and to the counsel for William Bucholz.
I experienced no difficulty in arranging this, as I have correspondents in almost every town and city in the United States; and the letters were upon the way to that distant Western city in a few days.
The letter was as follows:
"FRISCO, AUG., '79.
"I AM NOW OUT OF REACH OF JUSTICE, AND WILL NOT SUFFER THAT A INNOCENT MAN IS HELT FOR THE MURTER OF SCHULTE, AND VILL NOW STADE WERE THE CLOTHES AND BOCKET BOOKS WERE TROWN. U MAY FIND MORE BY SEARGEN THE GROUND, ABOUT TWO HUNDRED YARDS FROM WHERE SCHULTE WAS KILLED THERE IS A STONE FENCE RUNNING N. AND S. AND ONE RUNNING W., WERE THESE FENCES JOIN THERE IS A TREE CUT DOWN, AND U FIND BETWEEN THE STONES, AND IN THE GROUND SOMETHING THAT WILL SURPRISE U. I HOPE THIS WILL SAVE THE LIFE OF A INNOCENT MAN.
"NAMELESS."
It was printed in capitals and purposely misspelled, in order to convey the impression that the writer was a foreigner, and perhaps a tramp—many of which had infested that neighborhood.