The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1912-09-12
NED oRMs5Y's YARN.

THE Forbes gang Of counterfeit
'ers." said Ned ormsby, was without
doubt the greatest gang in their spe-
oialty ever got together. The gang,
as 1t was at first made up, consisted
of I'D Forbes, Little Jack Vaughn,
Sam 5tetson. Curley Peters and my
self. We were all in tho same Georgia
regiment, and enlisted In Atlanta, ex-
pectiEg to go through until the end
of the war, which IL was considered in
The south would not be very far on.
I'VE kept banging away with guns
for a couple of years and got pretty
sick OF It. The scraps We got into
we're not such jokes as We had Inn
agined they would be- The Yankees,
who, We had thought, would be soft
marks for the southern gentlemen,
turned out to be dandy fighters. Be
sides, there was no money in war, as
It was being carried on. Forbes told
US one day that he was going to quit
This hit us all Just right and We quit
with him.
81 did not know that Forbes had
any purpose In giving up war as
profession until We got well clear OF
the lines. We were not deserters, be
cause we had all served for longer
time than our enlistment called for
We went on the bum for few weeks
and then Forbes gave out the scheme
that he had been studying over for
long time. This was nothing less thar
to food the south with bogus counter
felt Confederate notes. He believed
that the south would be successful
and that We would not have any DIFF
ficulty In rolling In millions of dollars
The game looked like cinch, and W.
did get up stock OF bills represent
ing enough money to buy SINAI
state. when the Confederates vol
their Anal battle, but the cinch turne'
out to be tainted with foolishness, an
We were badly left In the end.
"Our glorious scheme was. knocke'
to smithereens when Lee surrendered
The whole gang went north with
pretty large-sized stock of property
which we disposed of at good prices
We came out pretty large winners, bu
1t made us sick when We thought Q
what II might have been.
I'VE reached New York in tn
course of our travels, and everythin
seemed TO be booming. Everybod
had money to burn, and we jumpe
In to get some Of 1t. Forbes put u
a Job to get possession OF several go'
erument printing plates. The 10
would have been successful II Iittl
Jack Vaughn, who was as clever q
artist in his line rs ever broke ston
for the state, hadn't got drunk
Washington and given enough OF III
snap away to throw us down. Forbe
was the maddest man you ever sa
when he heard OF vaughn's fool trio
ana he hunted for Little Jack for
month for the purpose Of killing hir
Vaughn kept out of the way unit
Forbes got cooled of, and then I
Joined the rest of the gang.
but you could not keep Forb'
down with a few little setbacks. al
II did not take him long to get on Il
move agdin. He hired house In Fla
bush. L. I. It was In the outskirts
the village. and We all went there
live. There had to be some excu
Tor lot OF men living in hou
with couple of negro servants,
We had sign painted and hung o
near the front gate. inscribed Eur
ka Club In order-to stop suspici'
We invited several of the infuentl
citizens TO dine with US. and we tre'
ed them like lords. Theg won
swear by US through thick and TIL
We were all the time quietly perfe'
Ing our counterfeiting plant- Curl