I went to Monterey Centre and
put my name on Magnus's bond when he was bound over to keep the peace.
I hinted to Magnus that he needn't mind about the bond if he still
believed in his heart that Gowdy needed killing; but Rowena pleaded with
him not to ruin himself, me and her by pursuing his plan of executing
what both he and I believed to be justice on a man who had forfeited his
life by every rule of right. This lapse into lawlessness on his part and
mine can not be justified, of course. It is set forth here as a part of
the history of the place and the time.
I am not equipped to write the history of the celebrated Gowdy Case,
which grew out of these obscure circumstances in the lives of a group of
pioneers in an Iowa township. Probably the writers of history will never
set it down. Yet, it swayed the destiny of the county and the state in
after years, when Gowdy had died and left his millions to be fought over
in courts, in caucuses, in conventions, state and county. If it does not
go into the histories, the histories will not tell the truth. If great
law firms, governors, judges, congressmen and senators, lobbyists and
manipulators, are not judged in the light of the secret as well as the
surface influence of the Gowdy Case, they will not be rightly judged.
The same thing is true of the influence of the loss of the county funds
by Judge Stone. Who was guilty? Was the plan to have the bag of
"treasure" stolen from us by the Bunker gang a part of the scheme of
whoever took the money? Did the Bushyagers know about the satchel? Did
they know it was full of salt instead of money? Of course not, if they
were in the thing.
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