when all started by different routes to Eagle Lake, from thence they came
to Janesville after spending twelve long hours on the road, but throughout
their whole course they saw and heard nothing of the robbers.
Subsequent developments proved that the news brought in by the mounted
messenger was a canard founded on the fact that some of the robber hunters
had been amusing themselves by “playing robbers.” The false alarm,
however, did no harm, and only stirred men to double diligence, and the
writer who spent the whole night of Sunday in visiting the outposts and
guards along the Winona & St. Peter railroad found them all on the _qui
vive,_ and he is confident if the bandits had shown themselves that night,
they would have fared badly.
The alarm telegraphed to St. Paul brought out again Chief King and another
body of police and citizens among whom was Hazen, of Cincinnati, who
thought he recognized in photographs of the two dead bandits, Bill
Chadwell and Charles Pitts.