For two weeks in a row, the parish priest of Pilštanj preached about Guzaj during his Sunday mass. He warned and threatened his followers that all of those who protected and hid the Outlaw Guzaj instead of handing him over to the gendarmerie would be damned. Guzaj warned the parish priest in a letter that we would pay him a visit because he no longer had the stomach to listen to the priest’s verbal attacks against him. The parish priest feared Guzaj, and asked the gendarmerie to watch over him night and day. Guzaj, however, was a master of disguises and changed his appearance like the wind.

One morning, immediately following mass, a boorish-looking man visited the rectory to ask the parish priest to write a baptismal certificate, which the man needed to submit with his application for a job with the railroad. While the priest was looking for the birth register, the future railway worker silently approached the statue of St. Francis and pulled out a bundle of money, which he slipped into his pocket in the blink of an eye. Once prepared to take down the necessary information, the priest asked, “What is your name?” “Franc Guzaj”, responded the Outlaw. The parish priest froze for a moment before raising his head. In the time it took to ask himself if he had heard the gentlemen correctly, the priest was staring down the barrel of a loaded pistol. The Outlaw Guzaj warned him not to stop sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, and to stop inciting the parishioners to rise up against him. He tied up the priest and demanded a memento of their meeting. The trembling priest reluctantly handed over his gold watch, while thinking to himself, “I only hope he won’t take the 4,000 florins hidden in the statue”.