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In May 1872, a lumberjack was strangled to death in a lumber camp outside Peshtigo. There was gossip about it in the Dew Drop Inn, a nearby tavern, but no leads were discovered and it was eventually forgotten.

A year later, a stranger arrived in town carrying a box with a pet badger inside. The Dew Drop customers prodded him until he told them that he employed the badger, whose name was Pinky, to gamble. He offered five dollars to anyone who owned a dog that could pull Pinky out of a barrel.

He quickly had takers. The first contestant, a fierce bulldog, failed. The second, a fat cocker spaniel, surprised the audience by coming out with the badger attached to his leg. Money was exchanged and the stranger requested a rope from the bartender, saying, “I’m going ter take Pinky out and strangle him. He’s no good when he loses money fer me.” And away he went.

That night, as the bartender closed up and went out the back door, he was told to “put up your hands.” It was the stranger with Pinky, holding a pistol. He took the bartender to the same logging camp where the murder had happened the year before and revealed that he was a Pinkerton detective. The rope he’d received from the bartender that afternoon precisely matched the rope used in the strangling of the lumberjack.