*****

Fotheringham, who had all this time laid in jail, still protested his innocence.  He stated that the letter heads found in his trunk he had taken from the general desk in the company’s office, and that the reason the signatures of Route Agent Bartlett was found on the paper, was due to the fact that he was about to write for a permit for a vacation Christmas, and simply practised writing the name.

This explanation was received with smiles, but his friends came to the rescue, and proved that he was in the habit of writing names on every bit of paper which came to hand.  That this eccentricity was well known, and his explanation should be received with favor.  The grand jury, however, found an indictment against him, and he was held as an accomplice to the robbery.

Appendix.

When the now noted express car robbers, Wittrock, Haight and Weaver, were brought up for trial, they pleaded “guilty,” and were sentenced to a term of years in the Missouri State penitentiary at Jefferson City.  A few days later the train carried them to that city, and as they passed the various places, Wittrock pointed out the gully in which was located the moonshiner’s cave where the plunder was divided, and then, as the train rounded the curve, he depicted, in graphic language, the struggle between Moriarity and himself, which was only ended by the freight train bearing down on them.

When the train arrived at Jefferson City the three prisoners were driven to the warden’s office of the penitentiary, and, after going through the regular formalities, the striped suits were put on them, and they became convicts.

Oscar Cook was sentenced to a term of years on the charge of being an accessory after the fact, but Moriarity, in consideration of the valuable services he had rendered the State, was not prosecuted.

The house of Nance, the widow, fortune-teller and “fence,” was broken up, and with it the rendezvous of one of the most daring bands of highwaymen which had ever infested that section of the country, Nance escaped the clutches of the law and disappeared from sight.

The detective work in connection with this case was as skillful, daring and successful as any that have made the detectives of Paris world famous.

Starting with the bit of torn express tag and following, thread by thread, the broken bits of clews which were discovered by the hawk eyes of the operatives until the arrest of Cook, it was as pretty a piece of business as ever brought criminals to their just punishment.

A most remarkable fact connected with the robbery and the subsequent detection of its participators, is that from first to last not a single human life was taken.

Unlike Jesse or Frank James, Redney Burns, Frank Rande or other noted outlaws, who always shot before a move was made, Jim Cummings pitted brute strength and brain power against brute strength and brain power.  He doubtless would not have hesitated to take life if pushed to the last extremity, but he placed more reliance on his cunning, shrewdness and ready brain than on the deadly bullet.