Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1895 — TRACKING A HIGHWAYMAN. [ARTICLE]

TRACKING A HIGHWAYMAN.

Shrewd as the Criminal Was, He Could Not Evade the Officers. “Big Foot” Andrews was the hardest man I ever saw to track,” said an upcountry sheriff yesterday. "He left tracks enough, for he had a foot fourteen inches long, but he had a way of mixing up his tracks so that we never could tell which way he was going. “Nobody but the stage drivers and passengers on the coaches ever saw Big Foot, and then he was always behind a Winchester. As soon as we would get word that a stage had been held up we would strike out for the scene of the robbery, and there we would find the big tracks that told us who the perpetrator was, but the tracks would not indicate the direction he took. We always found his trails accurately retraced step by step, and by the time we would get things straightened out he would be out of the country. “Every officer in the northern part of the State was on the lookout for the robber, and every man with big fe£t was under suspicion, but no one could get so much as a glimpse of him. Finally I hired two Wylackle Indian trailers, who could follow a cat track over the wildest country, but they could make nothing of Big Foot’s trail. They would run awhile in one direction, then try the track the other way awhile, and finally gave it up in disgust. Like all criminals, however, he came to grief. Notwithstanding all his cunning, he was finally captured. One day I saw a natty little stranger of effeminate manners and appearance drop lie wrapper from a roll of silver. I mechanically picked It up and immediately identified it as having been on the coin taken from the express box at the last robbery. I immediately sized up the stranger’s feet, but he wore a No. 5 lady’s button shoe. I asked him where he got the silver, and he becamg-so confused that I took him Into custody. When I searched his trunk at the hotel I found a Winchester rifle, mask, slouch flat and a pair of No. 12 boots, with heels on each end. The mystery of the Big Foot’s tracks was cleared up then.” —San Francisco Post.