"What can you suggest?" he asked me.
"I will get some prominent lawyer," I said, "to sign his bond; he will
be released, and as the quarterly session is nearly three months away it
will be hard to find him in three months."
Col. Lawrence said, "See that that is done and I will greatly appreciate
it."
A few days later a prominent lawyer of Katanning signed a bond for
Chalfont's appearance in court. He was released and at once set out for
parts unknown. Of course, he did not appear for trial and the bond was
declared forfeited. Through professional courtesy the bond was never
collected.
Chalfont was not heard from until the railroad strike at Pittsburg in
1877, when he again appeared in Pittsburg under an alias, and got a job
on the Panhandle Ry., running a passenger engine on the MacDonald
Accommodation. He got partly over the road on his first trip, and
failing to get the proper amount of water in the boiler the crown-sheet
blew out of the locomotive, scalding his fireman badly. He again took to
the woods and disappeared, and to my knowledge has not been heard of
since.