The government detective, now alarmed, began to beat on the steel door and demand that White open it.
He received no answer, and, as it was impossible to break in the door, he ordered the train stopped. Leaving the guard before the door of the stateroom the two government detectives now jumped down from either end of the car. These two men hurried toward each other along the side of the car on which the stateroom was located. But they found no sign of White. They then discovered that White had made his way through the small window in the lavatory and dropped off the moving train.
The authorities had now a definite description of White.
This they put out over the country, and another great man hunt began. It was the theory of the officials that White, like any other criminal who was being sought after, would at once undertake to leave the country. White knew this and he determined upon precisely the reverse of this course. He selected the most conspicuous and consequently the very last place that detectives on the search for a criminal would be likely to look.
They were finally able to trace him to Cincinnati. They had his photograph and thousands of circulars were struck off from it and posted in every depot and public place in the country; sent out broadcast to every city and every federal officer. The clew in Cincinnati mysteriously vanished.
But this man, clever and resourceful, was not fated to escape.
One day a medical student in a college in the middle west called on the local post-office inspector. He said that he had seen the poster describing White, which had been placed all over the country and had observed the resemblance to a fellow student in the college. There was a reward of $1000, and he wished to obtain this reward. The student studied the description given in the poster. One of the items of description was that the man wanted had a split thumb nail. The student waited for an opportunity to observe his suspected associate’s thumb. He found that the man’s hand corresponded to the description; “ridge extending the full length of the thumb nail on the left hand ... the thumb nail has evidently been split open and the ridge left as a scar ... the third finger of the left hand is somewhat crooked and stiff.”
The government authorities were at once notified by the post-office inspector. The suspected student was shadowed, identified as White and arrested.
He was brought north; this time attended with every precaution and handcuffed to a guard. Here he was tried for the robbery, convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in the penitentiary.
Thus closed the career of White. The finish of Mooney was more adventurous and spectacular.