At Albany all passengers for New York were required to change cars
and it was necessary to wait a brief time to make connections. On the
platform I met my new acquaintance, who had made himself known to me
as John Fenwick of Adelaide, Australia, and here he was in earnest
conversation with two young men. These he introduced to me as George
Fenton and James Barton, the former a stout man with blue eyes and
auburn hair and the latter a tall individual with keen, dark eyes and
slightly gray hair.
In greeting them I took the right hand in mine and pressed the last
joint of the small finger between my thumb and second finger of my
right hand. Then I opened the back cover of my watch and inside of it
exposed the _Sign of Silence_, saying, "This is the safe side." They
answered, each for himself, "I notice."
Having made the impression that I had knowledge of this order of secret
agents and their manner of identification, I won their confidence. This
way of winning them to trust me I had learned in Chicago several weeks
before, where I met a number of large buyers of horses, who confided in
me because I knew much of the horse market and the shipment of horses
from Iowa.
Although Mr. Fenwick and his companions looked upon me as one of their
class of people, I was far from it and entered upon a study of this
line of operations as an interesting adjunct of the great war in Europe
and Asia.
The trio of spies, as I choose to call them now, hailed with
satisfaction the intelligence that I had been in Iowa, where I had
made observations of the purchase and shipment of horses for the
Allies, especially England and France. These shipments included several
thousand animals.
This information was correct, as I had seen many carloads of horses
unloaded for feeding at Boone, Valley Junction and other railway
divisions in the Mississippi valley, later to be reloaded and forwarded
to points east and eventually to Europe. I had also seen many horses
that had been bought in the vicinity of Boone for the entente Allies
and had examined them in the yards before shipment.
The western farming and ranching country, especially the Mississippi
Valley, was covered by agents buying draft and army horses. Hundreds of
posters were scattered throughout the stock-raising districts, among
mule and horse raisers, and many newspapers carried display advertising
in their columns.
They secured the impression that I was on my way to Europe for the
purpose of looking more closely into the stock market in Denmark, where
Germany had purchased quite heavily at the beginning of the war. As
all this caused them to speak more freely, I evaded a discussion of
my mission to Denmark, but told them I was ticketed for Copenhagen
and that I expected to make the Hotel Central, on Raadhuspladsen, my
headquarters. This induced them to have even greater confidence in me
than before, as strangers usually give the mailing address at general
delivery in the post-office, instead of divulging their place of abode.