The Outlaw Who Got Away--Or Did He? part 2

The wild bunch label that was pined on Butch Cassidy’s gang was generally correct over all. It was especially so during one train robbery in 1899. It was near Wilcox, Wyoming, at about 2:30 a.m., that the gang, via some dynamite, reduced the express car of the Union Pacific’s Overland Limited to a pile of kindling and scrap iron. A second blast left a gaping hole in the safe. Fortunately the stubborn guard inside the express car, who had refused to come out, was not injured. But the surrounding landscape acquired a new look after the prairie breeze distributed the $30,000 that had been sent skyward with the explosion that opened the safe.

That must have been quite a sight, those hard-bitten outlaws, tripping lightly through the dusty dark sage, picking greenbacks like schoolgirls plucking posies.

Cassidy and his Wild Bunch which now included Harry Longabaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid, performed more train robberies. And by now, Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency was hot on the gang’s tail.

At one time during all this train robbing and outlaw chasing an older gentleman working for the Pinkertons took on the alias of Charles Carter and infiltrated the Wild Bunch. The Pinkertons knew Charles not as Carter but as Charles Angelo Siringo, a slight and gray-eyed Texas-born son of Italian and Irish immigrants.

It seems every time this new member of Butch’s gang got word of another plan to rob the railroad he’d squeal the information to the authorities. Of course the railroad would then change the train schedule and the Wild Bunch’s plans were shot full of holes.

My research tells me that eventually Cassidy figured out what was going on and went gunning for Siringo/Carter. It isn’t clear whether this peaceful outlaw planned to actually gun Siringo down or just slap him around a bit. At any rate, this was one case of the lawman getting away from the outlaw, but Siringo took back his true identity and went after Cassidy. He chased Butch for four years, from Wyoming to Arkansas and back again. Though the chase covered some 25,000 miles Cassidy got away. It wasn’t long before he went far, far away.

Since Siringo couldn’t catch Cassidy the Union Pacific just didn’t know what next to try. But they did come up with a plan. They considered offering Butch a job with the railroad. They dressed their offer up with a good salary, too. They wanted Cassidy to act as an express guard and they thought to throw a pardon into the deal. The deal fell through somehow so the railroad next organized their own gang of gunfighters. This well could have been the end for Butch Cassidy but somewhere along the way he must have done some studying and upped his outlaw grade point average.

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