That night the prisoner was informed that he was to be hanged in the morning and a friendly informant told him that the best thing he could do was to mount a saddled horse standing outside the jail and leave the country. He took the hint, the jail door being opened for his exit. He was probably allowed to escape by the sheriff with the consent of the vigilantes.

McCarthy never returned to Sidney, and it

HISTORY ( )I; WESTERN NEBRASKA

was thought for a long time that Whispering Smith had trailed him and ended his career. This belief was due to the fact that Smith disapeared from Sidney the same night that .Mc- Carthy made his getaway and was mysteriously absent for two days.

The fourth gold brick was found under Mc- Carthy's saloon several years after his departure. The find was made by workmen who were excavating for the foundation of a new bank building. McCarthy, who fled to Montana, was said to have been a "Molly Maguire" who escaped from Pennsylvania, after the great "Molly Maguire" excitement, in which he was a leader in the coal fields against law and order.

Col. A. B. Persinger, owner of Hardscrabble ranch near Lodgepo'.e, was a resident of Sidney at the time of the "great bullion robbery," as it was called, and while in Omaha last week, related several interesting incidents connected with the sensational affair. When station agent Allen was arrested his bond of $10,000 was signed within a few minutes by the best citizens of Sidney.