cember 7, 1869, in which cashier John Sheets was
brutally killed; the bank of Obocock Brothers, Corydon, Iowa, June 3,
1871, in which forty thousand dollars was taken, although no one was
killed; the Deposit Bank, of Columbia, Missouri, April 29, 1872, in
which cashier R. A. C. Martin was killed; the Savings Association, of
Ste. Genevieve, Missouri; the Bank of Huntington, West Virginia,
September 1, 1875, in which one of the bandits, McDaniels, was killed;
the Bank of Northfield, Minnesota, September 7, 1876, in which cashier
J. L. Haywood was killed, A. E. Bunker wounded, and several of the
bandits killed and captured as later described.

These same men or some of them also robbed a stage coach now and then;
near Hot Springs, Arkansas, for example, January 15, 1874, where they
picked up four thousand dollars, and included ex-Governor Burbank, of
Dakota, among their victims, taking from him alone fifteen hundred
dollars; the San Antonio-Austin coach, in Texas, May 12, 1875, in which
John Breckenridge, president of the First National Bank of San Antonio,
was relieved of one thousand dollars; and the Mammoth Cave, Kentucky,
stage, September 3, 1880, where they took nearly two thousand dollars in
cash and jewelry from passengers of distinction.

The most daring of their work, however, and that which brought them into
contact with the United States government for tampering with the mails,
was their repeated robbery of railway mail trains, which became a matter
of simplicity and certainty in their hands. To flag a train or to stop
it with an obstruction; or to get aboard and mingle with the train crew,
then to halt the train, kill any one who opposed them, and force the
opening of the express agent's safe, became a matter of routine with
them in time, and the amount of cash they thus obtained was staggering
in the total. The most noted train robberies in which members of the
James-Younger bands were engaged were the Rock Island train robbery near
Council Bluffs, Iowa, July 21, 1873, in which engineer Rafferty was
killed in the wreck, and but small booty secured; the Gad's Hill,
Missouri, robbery of the Iron Mountain train, January 28, 1874, in which
about five thousand dollars was secured from the express agent, mail
bags and passengers; the Kansas-Pacific train robbery near Muncie,
Kansas, December 12, 1874, in which they secured more than fifty-five
thousand dollars in cash and gold dust, with much jewelry; the
Missouri-