Divided as they were, their passage through the country excited no comment. They travelled as respectable persons might have travelled. In the evenings they would put up at a respectable village inn, or country farm-house, and in the mornings they paid for their accommodations as any other reputable citizens might have done. They did not hurry, because they did not want to break down their horses. The distance was great, and they were many days on the road. It was about the 1st of September, 1876, when the whole band had arrived in the neighborhood of Mankato. Their advance agents, having found a suitable place for a rendezvous at the house of Chadwell's friend, met their comrades, and, without exciting suspicion among the people, they directed the various detachments to the designated place of meeting. The robbers were now in Minnesota, but as yet they had not determined which of more than half a dozen banks they would rob. First, the claims of some one of the three banks doing business in Mankato to the distinction were considered. But the proposition to rob any one of them met with little consideration in the council of the brigands. They reasoned that three banks in such a place would naturally cause the business and investment funds of the community to be divided into three parts, no one of which could be very large, and as they "played for high stakes" at a great risk, they concluded to let Mankato banks alone. Then they considered the claims of the bank at St. Peter to be plundered. But there was not enough business done in the place, and it was not surrounded by a community deemed wealthy, and the brigands concluded to pass St. Peter, believing that they would not get a large haul in case they should raid the place. Several other banks were considered, and the probabilities as to the amount of treasure likely to be obtained were all considered. Finally, indications pointed to the bank of Northfield as probably richer in the treasures contained in its vaults than any other in that region of Minnesota. Northfield, the place selected by the desperadoes as the scene of their attempt at plundering, is a nourishing town on the line of the Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad, situated in the northeast corner of Rice county, Minnesota. The town is compactly built, and contains a population of about 2,000 souls. The country around Northfield is very productive, and there is considerable activity in commercial pursuits in the village. The bank building is situated in the very center of the business portion of the town. At the time the raid was made a large sum of money had accumulated in the vault of the institution. But Northfield happened to be peopled by a hardy and courageous race of pioneers who were not made of the material to submit with a good grace to be plundered by strange outlaws from another state.