The Great Train Escape

Frank Smith, one of thirty-one federal prisoners being taken to the United States prison at McNeil Island, succeeded in escaping from a Northern Pacific train moving at great speed near Pasco. He was one of those desperate characters that are almost inevitable in spite of close watch. When the train was over the station at the eastern end of the bridge, and was running nearly thirty miles an hour, one of the marshals went through the car to see the prisoners. Smith, who was handcuffed, saw his chance. Just as the guard was coming near, he took his hat and, throwing his hands together over his head, he dived headfirst through the car window. The guard pulled the bell cord and the train was forced to a standstill three miles further on. Marshal Webster and another guard tracked Smith for a mile over a rough country and, coming to the house of a homesteader, learned that his man had been there ahead of him. Smith attempted to make Mrs. Anderson give him assistance. She was of different material, however, and, confronting him with a revolver, put him to flight. Encouraged by the woman, Webster kept on and overtook him about a mile beyond Anderson's house. He took the prisoner back to the stopping place on the way at Anderson's, where Mrs. Anderson bound up his hands, which were badly cut by the window sash. Then he boarded the train and was taken to the United States marshal.