Mr. St. John, the general manager of the road, went in person to the penitentiary to take Plunkett's statement, which was in effect that he knew the men who had committed the robbery and killed Nichols, and was willing to sell this information in exchange for a full pardon, which the railroad people could secure by using their influence. This they promised to do if his story proved true, and Plunkett then told them of a plot that had been worked out a year or so before, when he had been "grafting" with a "mob" of pickpockets at county fairs. There were with him at that time "Butch" McCoy, James Connors (known as "Yellowhammer"), and a man named "Jeff," whose surname he did not know. These three men, Plunkett said, had planned an express robbery on the Rock Island road, to be executed in precisely the same way, and at precisely the same point on the road, as in the case in question. The story was plausible, and won Mr. St. John's belief. It won the belief, also, of Mr. Melville E. Stone of the "Daily News"; and forthwith the railway detectives, working with the newspaper detectives, were instructed to go ahead on new lines, regardless of trouble or expense. Their first endeavor was to capture "Butch" McCoy, the leader of the gang. "Butch" was a pickpocket, burglar, and all-around thief, whose operations kept him traveling all over the United States. The police in various cities having been communicated with to no purpose, Mr. Stone finally decided to do a thing the like of which no newspaper proprietor, perhaps, ever undertook before--that is, start on a personal search for McCoy and his associates. With Frank Murray, one of the best detectives in Chicago, and other detectives, he went to Galesburg, where the gang was said to have a sort of headquarters. The party found there none of the men they were after, but they learned that "Thatch" Grady, a notorious criminal with whom "Butch" McCoy was known to be in relations, was in Omaha. So they hurried to Omaha, but only to find that Grady had gone to St. Louis. Then to St. Louis went Mr. Stone and his detectives, hot on the scent, and spent several days in that city searching high and low.