that the subscription agreement the shareholders had signed made it clear that the risk of loss was theirs not Ryan's. According to his daughter, Marie Ryan, at the time the scheme collapsed, Ryan put over $800,000 in a satchel, and escaped the city in a buggy over the Eads Bridge into Illinois. During this period, the U.S. Postal Department had become involved, investigating Ryan to determine whether any of his activities - using the mails to transact business, receiving money from subscribers, betting by mail etc., - were illegal. He was on the verge of being indicted in federal court, when he was granted immunity by becoming a federal witness, based on his claim that Postal Department employees had accepted bribes from him in exchange for allowing him to continue to operate. The trial of the alleged perpetrators eventually resulted in acquittal. In August 1903, Ryan appeared at Saratoga Springs, New York, and became known to the public attending the horse races as "Plunger Ryan", making $30,000 bets on the outcome of races. When the Saratoga meeting ended at the end of August, Ryan took his betting spree on to the New York tracks, Sheepshead Bay and Brighton Beach Race Course among others, winning on occasion as much as $70,000 on a single race, according to the New York papers. By 1905, Ryan was back in Cincinnati, having been ruled off legitimate tracks by track managers who did not want the sensational publicity that he attracted. In Cincinnati, Ryan invested the money he escaped from St. Louis with in real estate and in a chain of vaudeville theaters he developed, which at one time extended from St. Louis to New York State. The chain drew its performers from a circuit established by Big Tim Sullivan and John W. Considine (not to be confused with George Considine's brother). Sullivan died in 1912, George Considine, in 1916. John Considine became Ryan's lifelong friend and business associate; his only friend as far as the record shows. The theater business collapsed in about 1913, probably the consequence of the collapse of vaudeville and a major change in the motion picture business and the manner in which films were distributed. In February 1907, Ryan took his wife, Anna, and daughter, Marie, on a trip around the world. Leaving from Seattle on board the J.J. Hill owned steamer, SS Dakota, the trio went to Hawaii and