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-Pacific train robbery at Rocky Cut, July 7, 1876, where they held the train for an hour and a quarter and secured about fifteen thousand dollars in all; the robbery of the Chicago & Alton train near Glendale, Missouri, October 7, 1879, in which the James boys' gang secured between thirty-five and fifty thousand dollars in currency; the robbery of the Rock Island train near Winston, Missouri, July 15, 1881, by the James boys' gang, in which conductor Westfall was killed, messenger Murray badly beaten, and a passenger named MacMillan killed, little booty being obtained; the Blue Cut robbery of the Alton train, September 7, 1881, in which the James boys and eight others searched every passenger and took away a two-bushel sack full of cash, watches, and jewelry, beating the express messenger badly because they got so little from the safe. This last robbery caused the resolution of Governor Crittenden, of Missouri, to take the bandits dead or alive, a reward of thirty thousand dollars being arranged by different railways and express companies, a price of ten thousand dollars each being put on the heads of Frank and Jesse James.