The two trades netted us thirteen hundred dollars in cash and a fine horse, harness and carriage.
We then drove over to Elmore, where I had left my wife and boy. After leaving her money enough to convince her that she would not be pawned that week we started the next day eastward, stopping at Fremont for supper about six o'clock.
We had traded the State of Illinois in our patent to a gentleman in the lightning-rod business, and that night while walking up street we noticed a large crowd of men standing on the corner talking.
We stepped across the street to see what the excitement was.
On looking over the shoulders of the men we saw our customer, the lightning-rod man, standing there holding his pitchfork in one hand and valise in the other. We were about to crowd in when we heard him say:
"Well, if I can find them I shall have them arrested and replevin the horse."
Frank and I then held a short consultation. Our first idea was to go to him and ascertain what he meant by saying he would arrest us. We felt certain we had violated no law, or at least had no intention of doing so. But after reconsidering the matter we concluded that he was simply a "squealer," and as we had made a square, fair trade with him we decided to let him find us instead of our looking for him.
Our experience of a few days before with the writ of replevin had been a very good lesson. We didn't consider it worth while to deliberately turn our stock over to "squealers," when they were taking so much pains to hunt us up, and especially when we stopped to realize that in dealing with a lightning-rod man it was simply a case of "diamond cut diamond." We therefore started East that evening, arriving at Cleveland a few days later.
On reading the late daily papers which we always made a practice of doing, we found several long articles about two men visiting Findlay with a patent right and how they had taken a handsome horse and carriage and several thousand dollars in cash for which they gave worthless deeds.
We also read a full description of ourselves and the horse and buggy and that a liberal reward would be paid for our capture and return to Findlay.