At the time of Shinburn’s escape, the only means for recapture were a search of the surrounding country and the sending of a description of the escaped man to the police of various cities--a description that would fit many people and often did not at all fit the one for whom it was intended. Instead of a Bertillon system of measurements, by which it is practically impossible to be mistaken, there was then only the old plan of visual identification. This always gave a fine opportunity for the Great Identifier, who constantly looked for a chance to get in his deadly work. “I’m scheming to make a strike through Western New York and Ontario, Canada,” Shinburn said to me a few weeks later, “but I’m short of the ‘ready’ just now, having been in retirement for some time, as you know; so, if you’ll back the game, I can’t see how we can lose.” “I’m with you, Mark, provided there is a chance of making good. You’ve been in the business long enough to know best what to do, so here’s along with you.” John Ryan and Laurie Palmer were counted in the venture, and the prospect of a rich haul seemed exceedingly bright. The banks that were secured entirely by key locks Shinburn was to tackle, and those being guarded in part, or wholly, by combination locks were to be attacked by Ryan, who had a fine kit of tools for that sort of work. We went to Buffalo, where Shinburn and Palmer called on a gambler friend. Ryan put up with a man acquaintance, while I went to a hotel. Making the Bison City our headquarters, we struck out in different directions in search of “lootable” banks, our main object being to find those using key locks. It was like convicting an egotist of his own conceit to find this class of bank, so we gave it up. About this time a friend of Shinburn’s, whom he introduced as Mr. Ellis, a counterfeiter, suggested that a bank at Brockport, seventeen miles west of Rochester, would be a comparatively easy piece of loot, owing to the habits of the police guard of the village, which consisted of a lone night watchman. Ellis said this watchman invariably went off duty at eleven o’clock at night. As to the vault of the bank, he declared it could be robbed, despite the combination lock used on it and its heavy steel work in general, by tunnelling from the top. Shinburn and Ryan decided to attempt the job, agreeing to pay Ellis ten per cent of the treasure obtained. A postponement was necessary the first night we went at the job, because there happened to be a dance in the village, which in some manner or other induced the night watchman to remain on duty longer,--in fact, until three o’clock in the morning. Several evenings later we journeyed there again, and it was a night to be remembered, because of the great snow-storm and high winds that came with it. It was a hummer--of the blizzard class. In many respects, though, it was just our sort of weather, the kind that keeps people indoors. Scarcely a dog was in the streets after eleven o’clock.