Late in June Smith left New York and joined Crowley at the Normandy Hotel in Detroit. "Then we went to Port Huron," he said, "where we planned to dynamite a railroad tunnel and a horse train. We didn't do it, though.
"Then we went to Toronto, and Crowley told me to plant a bomb under a horse train in the West Toronto yards. But I saw a policeman, and I got out quick. Then we took some nitroglycerine, cotton, sawdust, and a tin pan and some other things to Grosse Isle, Ontario, and went out back of a cemetery and made some bombs.
"Well, we got back to San Francisco late in July, and Crowley and I cooked up an expense account of $1,254.80, and took it up to the consulate. Von Schack locked the door behind us, and then he said: 'I don't want any statement. Tell me how much you want?' We told him, and he said he would get it the following day. Then all of a sudden he asked: 'How do I know you fellows did any jobs in Canada?'
"'Wire the mayor of Toronto and ask him!' Crowley answered."
On one occasion at least the Germans respected American property, for the protection America might afford. Werner Horn, a former lieutenant in the Landwehr, was in Guatemala when the war broke out. He made an attempt to return to his command, but got no farther than New York, where he placed himself at the disposal of Captain von Papen. On January 18 the military attaché paid him $700. On February 2 Horn exploded a charge of dynamite on the Canadian end of the international bridge at Vanceboro, Maine, spanning the St. Croix River to New Brunswick. The explosion caused a slight damage to the Canadian half of the bridge. A few hours later Horn was arrested in Vanceboro, and admitted the crime.
When the Canadian authorities applied for his extradition, the warrant which Judge Hale issued was not executed, the United States Marshal for Maine having received word from Washington that a well-preserved treaty between Great Britain and the United States would cover just such a case, and Horn was indicted on a charge of having transported explosives from New York City to Vanceboro. His attorneys naïvely attempted to secure his liberty by casting a protective mantle of international law about his shoulders: Werner Horn, they said, was a First Lieutenant of the West-Prussian Pioneer Battalion Number 17, and as such was sworn by His Royal Majesty of Prussia to
" ... discharge the obligations of his office in a becoming manner, ... execute diligently and loyally whatever is made his duty to do and carry out, and whatever is commanded him, by day and by night, on land and on sea, and ... conduct himself bravely and irreproachably in all wars and military events that may occur...."
Yet he was tried, and that without much delay, and convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment.
Although the destruction of railways was an attractive means of stopping the progress of munitions to the seaboard, and although it was a recognized practice during 1915, it made the Embassy at Washington uneasy. Bernstorff protested to the Foreign Office in Berlin that if a German agent should be caught in the act of dynamiting a railroad it would be exceedingly embarrassing for him, and increase the difficulties of his already ticklish rôle of apologist and explainer-extraordinary. The Foreign Office accordingly sent a telegram to von Papen:
"January 26—For Military Attaché.... Railway embankments and bridges must not be touched. Embassy must in no circumstances be compromised."
(Signed) "Representative of General Staff."