crowded into the streets of Mankato seeking information and anxious for orders. The ubiquitous Dill was there with his disciplined men. Baxter was there and Sheriffs Finch, Davis, Barton, Long and Harrison, Mayor Wiswell and Captains Holmes and Owens. Thus were the counties of Winona, Blue Earth, Rice, Waseca, Faribault and Ramsey represented by their sheriffs and men. The five Northfield boys, who had never for an hour given up the hunt, were there and ready again to guard, mount and scour the woods.
Davis, of Winnebago, whose story of the robbers' appearance the evening before at Indian Lake, was so little heeded, was now almost lionized, and it was surprising how many were all at once found who believed in the famous horse thief catcher from the first.
It was necessary that some system be pursued; accordingly General [pg 36] Pope, of Mankato, was appointed generalissimo of the forces, and that gentleman at once set about a plan of organization. Bridges must be guarded, cross-roads and by-paths watched, patrols sent out, and skirmish lines established. One would think by the measured tramp of armed men, the bustle, the eager excitement, the groups of mysterious gossips, that Mankato expected a seige from the combined forces of all the hostile savages paying allegiance to Sitting Bull, rather than that the men were called out to capture six fugitive robbers.
But the people seemed determined. Their looks seemed to say that they were tired of playing this game of hide and seek, and were for once in downright earnest and bent upon bringing this thing to a quick and decisive close.
It was a miserably wet morning, the rain descending in a continuous shower, and the air was filled with a damp chilliness, which rendered out-door vocations particularly disagreeable. The streets and roads were filled with slimy mud—griming and sticking, to the intense misery of pedestrians. But the rain and the mud and the cold could not deter the excited populace, and even women caught the infectious fever of excitement and dared the elements in search of news. All the city was on the tip-toe of expectancy, but the hours glided slowly along and no news was brought in from the skirmish lines or outposts. Reports, it is true, were rife, and many a thrilling tale of manly courage and sanguinary encounter was whispered by mani-tongued rumor. At one time the robbers were all slaughtered, at another, a brave citizen was sacrificed, but enquiry proved them to owe their existence to fertile imaginations. Evening at last closed in upon a miserable day, and the tired, wet and hungry hunters began to return. The Clifton house was filled with them, the congenial host doing his best to appease their ravenous appetites, after which the weary men stretched themselves at length upon the floors of the parlors, offices and halls to snatch a few minutes' refreshing slumber. Meantime a strong guard was placed at every point around the city, and mounted men patrolled the streets all night.
At about midnight some of the men on guard heard peculiar whistles at different points, which seemed to be replied to, the call resembling the low note of the quail, and the answer, the high note of the same bird. Report was made of the circumstance at “Headquarters,” and while a discussion was progressing as to whether the men were not mistaken, and their ability to distinguish between the veritable bird call and its its imitation, a mounted messenger came dashing in with the news that three of the robbers had
CROSSED THE BRIDGE,
over the Blue Earth river and had escaped toward South Bend. The news spread like a prairie fire, and in an incredibly short time the streets were alive with armed men hastening down toward the point at which the fugitives had broken the line of outposts. Sheriff Dill, who, [pg 37] had retired but a few minutes to the well-deserved comfortable bed put at his disposal at the Clifton, was soon up and away with a posse of men. Other leaders were equally alert, but all mentally, and some physically, too, cursed the blundering guard, which had permitted itself to be caught napping. Enquiry soon ascertained the fact that
SOME ONE HAD BLUNDERED.
It appears that General Pope in arranging for the night guard had provided for a strong body of men being placed upon each of the bridges over the Blue Earth, this being considered the vulnerable point in the line, but a telegram coming to him stating that the railroad bridge would be specially guarded by the railroad officials, he removed his guard from that structure, and, as it proved, opened a direct way for the brigands' escape. The railroad authorities had placed two men and a boy on the bridge to guard it, and about two o'clock they saw three men approaching in single file. The guard stood on one side and the men advanced and walked deliberately on to the trestle work and passed over, the heroic guard being too much frightened to even breathe. As soon as the fugitives had got fairly past, the boy rushed down to the covered bridge and alarmed the guard there, who at once sent a mounted messenger into the city to tell the miserable tale. Nothing during the whole hunt had such a humiliating effect upon the people as this fiasco, but they were doomed ere long to receive as great a disappointment.