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.

No one for a moment believed him guilty, as he was held in the highest esteem by everybody in the community. After his acquittal, the firm of Persinger & Whitney, wholesale and retail grocers, employed him as bookkeeper and confidential cashier. Prior to becoming

station agent Allen had served as county clerk and treasurer, and had the entire confidence of the people. Upon leaving Sidney, Allen located in Pueblo. Colorado, where he became paymaster of a large coal company.

Colonel Persinger does not class Smith as a hero, such, as he is made to appear in a novel bearing the title of "Whispering Smith," written some years ago by Frank H. Spearman. He knew Smith very well, and regarded him more as an outlaw.

Whispering Smith was a dead shot ; a man of nerve ; cold-blooded, calculating and fearless ; and a man who would cunningly and tauntingly provoke an enemy to commit the first overt act, thus giving Smith ground for self-defense. That was Smith's game. Such is Colonel Persinger's iconoclastic estimate of the hero of Spearman's novel, in which the "great bullion robbery" is not even remotely referred to.