$5,000 Reward,
   The express car on the eastern bound passenger train of the Central Pacific Railroad was forcibly entered near Pequop, Nevada, last evening, and robbed of our treasure. We will pay $2,500 reward for the arrest and conviction of the robbers, or proportionately for each and $2,500 reward for the recovery of the treasure, or proportionately for any part of it.
                                                                        Wells, Fargo & Co.
  Elko, November 6, 1870.

 Wells, Fargo & Company offered a similar reward for the robbers of the train at Verdi, the U. S. post office offered another $500, and the State of Nevada added $20,000 to the reward fund. After the robbery at Pequop various dispatches reported sightings of the robbers: “Toano, Nevada, Nov 7th. Two suspicious characters with jaded horses, without blankets or provisions, were seen about ninety miles south of here this morning, and were supposed to be two of the parties who robbed the Express car on the night of the 5th. Parties are now in pursuit of them.” Two telegrams dated November 8 were received at Toano: “A mining camp ninety miles south of this place [Deep Creek, Utah], two suspicious characters had passed there on horse-back in an easterly direction avoiding the camp;” and “Two more came on horse back, heavily armed, and stopped long enough to purchase provisions and then left, going in an easterly direction. They displayed a number of $20 [gold] pieces, coined at San Francisco and dated 1870, and large rolls of greenbacks. No doubt these are the men who committed the deed. Deputy Sheriff Moffitt and party have left in pursuit of them. Lieut. King, with a detachment of thirty cavalry, left Toano on the 8th inst.” Two of the men seen were wearing army uniforms, which added to the mistaken belief they were deserters. The men were easily tracked across the desert by five posses, one a troop of U. S. cavalry from Camp Halleck.
 A dispatch to the Ogden Junction [Utah] dated November 12 said: “H. P.  Kimball and J. L. Knowlton were dispatched on Wednesday last by the agent of Wells, Fargo & Co., in pursuit of four suspicious characters, about whom he had received a telegram. On their way out west, they obtained the assistance of Mr. Judd, and soon after came up with two men on horseback, Baker &  Morton, who answered to the description furnished them. They captured one without resistance, but the other tried to make his escape, being pursued by Mr. Knowlton, and was finally taken after a sharp chase, but his saddle bags were gone, and he said he had thrown them in the water– $100 in greenbacks and 50 ounces of gold were found on their persons. They were taken to Salt Lake on Thursday, and locked up in jail. The stream near the woolen factory at Grantsville, was subsequently dragged and two bags of gold, and $1200 in greenbacks fished up and handed over to the proper officers.” Leander Morton and Daniel Boone Baker had captured in a desolate area 85 miles south of the Great Salt Lake. Morton, when apprehended, had on a pair of buckskin gloves marked in ink, “W. H. Harvey” and marked with Harvey’s company. This connected these men to the train robbery and to the deserters; but these men were not among the deserters but they had, at some time, acquired the items from the deserters.
 Kimball and Riley Judd later captured a third member of the gang who gave the name Daniel F. Taylor, and he was brought into town on the evening of November 22, 1870. It was reported that a fourth robber, whose name was George Lee, was taken about the same time by officers, but later it turned out that it was only his name that was learned and he had eluded capture. The fifth robber was never identified. The three prisoners, after being lodged in jail at Elko, confessed their guilt. In the  November 30, 1870 edition of the Elko Independent [Nevada] it was reported that “Daniel Taylor, Daniel Baker and Leander Morton have been indicted for robbing the Wells, Fargo & Company express car and the U.S. Mail.” On January 14, 1871 the Independent reported: “The Railroad Robbers, – The three railroad robbers, Dan Taylor, Leander Morton and Daniel Baker, have been on trial during the present week in the District Court, and the case, after argument of counsel, reached the jury at 4 o’clock P.M. yesterday who, after being out a few minutes, returned a verdict of guilty.  They will probably receive the full extent of the law provided for such offences; after which a United States Court will take them in hand, and if found as charged in the indictment by the U.S. Grand Jury, recently in session in Carson City, they will be hanged. Rather a gloomy prospect for the boys.” The Elko County jury had deliberated only a few minutes before returning the guilty verdict and on January 17, 1871 Daniel Taylor, Daniel Baker and Leander Morton were sentenced to serve 30 years each in the Nevada State Penitentiary. On January 19 they started their long prison terms: Taylor registering as prisoner № 70, Morton as № 71, and Baker as № 72.
 On Sunday evening, September 17, 1871, twenty-nine of Nevada’s most desperate outlaws broke out of the Nevada State Penitentiary at Carson City, well armed from the prison armory. Daniel Baker and Leander Morton were among those who escaped, but Daniel Taylor failed to join them. Some of the convicts went their own way while others split into smaller groups, and one of these parties consisted of Morton, Tilton Cockerell, Charley Jones, Moses Black,  John Burke, and J. Bedford Roberts. This party of six convicts fled south through Esmeralda County and on September 20 captured  William Poor, a young man carrying mails between Aurora and Carson. They murdered him, stole his clothes and boots, and continued southwest toward California.
 Posses from Bodie and Aurora went after the six escapees and picked up their trail. On September 25 the posse came across Morton, Roberts and Black on the slopes of the Sierras and, in a brief exchange of shots, posseman Morrison was killed and convict Roberts was seriously wounded. The posse retreated a short distance to regroup while the escapees made their way upwards to the place where Paiute Indian tracker Mono Jim was holding his and deputy sheriff Hightower’s horses. Black murdered the Indian and they took the horses to make their escape. Two days later, exhausted by their flight across hard country, Morton and Black were run to ground in the sand hills 5 miles southeast of Round Valley. Morton gave up without a fight but, as Black raised his hands, an Indian tracker thought he was raising a gun and fired, causing a mortal head wound. The two men were taken to town and left there while the lawmen went after Roberts, his location disclosed by Morton and Black. Black soon died of his wound and, since the farmers had to dig one grave, they hanged Morton and buried both men in unmarked graves. When the lawmen returned with Roberts the farmers told the lawmen that both prisoners had died, but refused to tell them where they were buried. They made no attempt to lynch Roberts due to his young age, only 18 at the time, and his willingness to tell all he knew –  which disclosed that he had not been involved in the murder of Poor, Morrison, or Mono Jim, nor of Matt Pixley during the break-out.
 Daniel Baker made good his escape and it was not until three years later, in 1874, that Wells Fargo’s detectives tracked him down and arrested him in Corvallis, Oregon. He had been in that city for two years, where he had married and earned a reputation as an honest, sober and industrious citizen. He was returned to Carson City where he served two years more before being granted a pardon on July 15, 1879. Baker returned to his wife and child who, in the meantime, had moved to Idaho. Daniel Taylor, who failed to join his fellow train-robbers in the “Big Break-out,” was pardoned on January 15, 1878 and discharged within a few days.
 George Lee, alias Lee Morgan, eluded capture. A dispatch, dated December 19, reported that: “The post office Department offered a reward of $25,000 for his [Lee’s] arrest concerning his role in the robbery of the Central Pacific train near Pequop, Elko County, Nevada on November 5, 1870. The Central Pacific Company offered $1,000, gold coin, additional, and Wells, Fargo & Co., $500. A handbill was issued giving his description in full.” Lee was never captured and the fifth robber was never identified.

 Daily State Record [Reno, NV]: September 29, 1870; September 19, 1871; September 29, 1871: October 8, 1871. Deseret News [Salt Lake City, UT]: November 23, 1870. Elko Independent [NV]: November 9, 1870; January 14, 1871; November 18, 1871. Gold Hill Daily News [NV]: November 7-8, 1870; December 16, 1870; December 19, 1870; October 7-8, 1871; November 16, 1876. Humboldt Register [NV]: November 12, 1870; November 19, 1870, January 4, 1871. New York Herald [NY]:, November 23, 1870. Reno Evening Gazette [NV]: March 4, 1901. Territorial Enterprise [Virginia City, NV]: October 6, 1871. Weekly Nevada State Journal [Reno, NV]: November 18, 1876; December 22, 1940.