This was believed to have been planned some days in advance, and with the co-operation of rbe stage driver and the Sidney express agent.
On the day mentioned the stage arrived too late to catch the east bound train. C. K. Allen, a fine-looking man, was express agent. He took four gold bars, valued at twenty thousand dollars each, and several thousand in currency and put them in the freight room. He locked the door and went to lunch.
On returning he found that a hole had been sawed through the floor, and the gold bars and currency were gone. A tunnel, which must have required the work of several days, led to and under another building, and the robbers were gone.
Albert Sorenson tells of the following events in this way, in a recent issue of the Omaha Bee :
"General Superintendent Morsman of fhe
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
Pacific Express company and John M. Thurston, then assistant general attorney of the Union Pacific, upon arriving at Sidney to investigate the robbery, found Robert Law, superintendent of the mountain division, already on the ground. Law had brought with him James H. Smith, known as "Whispering Smith." the railroad detective, whose headquarters were at Cheyenne.
After carefully looking over the situation and weighing all the circumstances, it was concluded by the railroad officials that the robbery was committed by four men ; that the leader was a man named McCarthy, who had served as sheriff in 1876 and 1877, and at this time was conducting the Capitol saloon and gambling house. He was a man of considerable political influence and had for his warmest friends the entire tough element which ran the town to suit themselves.