While these preliminary contests were taking place, the more systematic campaign was arranged and inaugurated. Before Thursday night two hundred men were in the field, and on Friday five hundred. Other hundreds still joined the chase later on, swelling the number at one time to at least a thousand. It is impossible to give a list of those engaged, or to do justice to the zeal, the determination and the endurance that they showed. Among those who were prominently engaged, either in organizing the forces or in conducting operations in the field, may be mentioned Mayor Solomon P. Stewart of Northfield, Sheriff Ara Barton and Geo. N. Baxter, Esq., of Faribault, chiefs of police King of St. Paul and Munger of Minneapolis, Detectives Hoy and Brissette, and many others. Of the men under them, several were experienced officers, and not a few were veteran soldiers. There were also, of course, in so large and hastily-mustered a force, very many who had no fitness for the service, either in personal qualities or in equipment, and no conception of the requirements of such a campaign. They came armed with small pistols and old fowling-pieces of various degrees of uselessness, and utterly without either judgment or courage. Their presence was a source of weakness to the force. Their foolish indiscretions embarrassed and defeated the best-laid plans; and their failure at critical moments and places to do what they had been depended upon to do made them worse than useless,—worse than enemies. Many went into the service from mercenary motives. Large rewards for the capture of the robbers dead or alive were offered by the Northfield bank, the Governor of the state and the railway companies; and this inducement drew into the ranks of the pursuers much poor material. These statements need to be made, not so much by way of censure upon the inefficient as in justice to the better members of the force, and as an explanation of some of the vexatious delays and failures of the campaign. For, while it constantly suffered from the presence of these mercenaries and blunderers, it did not lack, from its first day to its last, a nucleus of brave, keen-witted, cool-headed, determined men, whom nothing could daunt or discourage. And the best of them were not too capable for the work. Two objects were to be accomplished,—the retreat of the fugitives was to be cut off, and they were to be hunted down and captured. To secure the first, picket-lines were thrown out in advance of them, covering every route which they could possibly take, and especially guarding roads, bridges and fords. To secure the second, scouting parties were put upon their trail, to follow them from place to place, and to explore the country far and near in search of them. It was no holiday excursion. They were in a vast forest tract known as the Big Woods, broken here and there by clearings and by settlements great and small, but embracing also wide