"Who are those guys?" is the oft-quoted question from Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid, in the movie bearing their names, regarding
their relentless pursuers. The pursuers were none other than the
Pinkerton agents.
Founded in 1850 as a private forerunner to the FBI the Pinkerton
Detective Agency had many successes besides driving the
Hole-in-the-Wall gang members out of the country. They detected an
early plot to assassinate Pres. Lincoln, infiltrated the Molly
Maquires, and broke up the Reno Gang.
They were least successful in their pursuit of the James-Younger
Gang. In March of 1874, one of their agents got caught snooping
around the James farm near Kearney, Missouri , was kidnapped and
hauled across the Missouri river, shot and killed. A few days
later, John and Jim Younger got the drop on two more agents and
made them give up their gunbelts. One of the agents used his backup
piece, a derringer, to shoot John in the throat. The Youngers shot
back. By the time the smoke cleared only Jim Younger survived. In
1875, the Pinkertons led an illegal, nocturnal raid on the James
farm in which the house was fire-bombed killing Frank and Jesse's
younger half-brother and shattering their mother's right hand so
badly it had to be amputated. The raid backfired in that afterwords
the James brothers, who were not in the house, received much public
sympathy and aid. An inquest was held, but the clock ran out before
enough evidence could be gathered to prosecute the agency.
Later, several messages were found which clearly implicate the
Pinkertons. These telegrams were encoded using the scheme revealed
in the following correspondence from Allen Pinkerton to a new
operative:
"...I send you a form of 'cypher' telegraphing which I sometimes
use, and which I may telegraph to you. I will also suppose the
following to be a telegram, you will observe how I will write it
out.
| weather |
rainy |
and |
probably |
snow |
| we |
shall |
get |
all |
our |
| trees |
in |
order |
and |
likely |
| to |
save |
every |
one |
of |
| them |
from |
winters |
storms |
our |
| horses |
and |
mules |
are |
in |
| splendid |
condition |
they |
will |
get |
| along |
the |
sheep |
are |
good |
The following is the form the message passes over the wires.
good get in our of likely our snow weather we trees to them horses
splendid along are will are storms one and all probably rainy shall
in save from and condition the sheep they mules winters every order
get and
"
Then he goes on to explain some of the code words, such as
chicken for Jesse James, and how the plaintext array was
transformed into the coded message. But you can figure that
out.
The posted coordinates will take you to the parking lot in the
park. From there the message below, which was encoded using
essentially the same method as illustrated above, will direct you
to the cache.
log
four up hollow between one seven two up trail four nine hundred
sign two east pass eight one log hill foot sign to points twenty
way through post post trail to for eight eight then steps branch
post stop nine on thirty high stump feet left and half three at at
follow feet degrees