“Of late, since all German plans founded on the information I have given them have miscarried, they are suspicious that I have betrayed them. I have been constantly watched—sometimes by men who are in our secret service—but I have been able to elude them by several devices—one of them by exchange of identity with my brother. They have not, with all their acuteness, suspected the horse or dog.
“When you were captured, your answer to the first official who questioned you about me did much to give them greater confidence in me. When I was called to assist in questioning you, it was a part of their plan to make me commit myself; our faces were closely watched. Your angry manner at seeing me convinced them that you, whom they knew to be my former friend, believed me to be a traitor to your country. My act in dropping the book in your pocket as I passed you, with all their keenness, was not observed.
“Now, however, doubt and more than suspicion, yea, almost certainty, that I have played them false is closing around me; their hounds of the secret service are on my track. If I feared them or death, I could not keep my nerve.
“I have learned that my brother is under arrest and in prison, and possibly by this time has met his fate; for these men do not hesitate to kill even on suspicion. Now that all their cherished plans for universal dominion have been foiled, they are suspicious of every one—even of each other—and this alone may lead to their final ruin.
“I feared, when I connived at your escape, that they might capture you; I therefore, as a precaution, put the misleading letter to you in the saddle, with that to Colonel Burbank. For though it was seeming plain treason to the American flag, yet to him I knew it would have another meaning. The letter would explain my conduct, and throw them off their guard from looking further.
“I knew how much you must have suffered from doubts of my loyalty. It cuts me like a knife when I think of it. I had written ‘rip the saddle’ thinking you must understand; I then dared to write no more.
“The information I have just sent to Colonel Burbank of the German plans are of but little value, because I am watched so closely, and my brother can not relieve me, to give me time. I think you will understand.
“With hopes that this may safely reach you, and that you will make clear to one I may never see again on earth, my loyalty to the flag, I am your faithful friend,
“Jonathan Nickerson.”