The San Francisco call., 1898-04-01
CLOSE ON
 THE TRAIL , OF REGAIN Exciting Man Hunt
 in the Madeira
 Foothills. Outlaws Making Their
 Way to Coarse Gold s-. Gulch. Pursuing Sheriffs Confident . That They Are After the . Right Men. = MINERS CABINS LOOTED. Evidence Found to Prove That the -. Fugitives Robbed the Los ,. .- Angeles Express.
Pursuing Sheriffs Confident That They Are After the .." ... Right Men.
: MINERS CABINS LOOTED.
Evidence Found to Prove That the Fugitives Robbed the Los
 Angeles Express.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

MERGED, March 31.-The peace off, cers are hot on the trail of Cliff Began and his mysterious confederate, who are accused of having robbed the Los Angeles express at Cross Creek on the night of March 22 Late this after noon it was decided by the pursuing Sheriffs' posses that the two robbers were making from Indian Gulch, in the western end of Mariposa County, to- ward Coarse Gold Gulch in Madeira County. At that time the officers be- lieved they were only a short distance behind the fleeing bandits. The pur- suers are positive that the two men they are after are the ones who robbed the train.
 c. c. Crowley, the chief of the South ern Pacifc's detective force, who for a few days took a prominent part, yes terday came back from the mountains where the robbers are hiding and free ly expressed himself as being positive that his brother officers were on the wrong scent. He claimed that Cliff Began and his partner were not the train robbers, but a pair of petty thieves, who were afraid of being pun ished for stealing horse and buggy.
 Crowley's theory was completely up- set to-day by Supervisor s. L. M. FL lis of Tulare, who accidentally came upon the suspected bandits, late in the forenoon of the day the train was robbed, in a deserted barn about a mile from the scene of the hold-up., Ellis on that occasion conVersed with Re gan but the bandits partner kept his face concealed under the corner of a blanket, while feigning sleep. The cur iosity of Ellis was aroused and he took particular notice of the buggy and the horses the men had with them. Their buggy was fitted with shafts,. but the outlaws had two horses. One was black and the other 2 sOTrel. On Tues day a horse and d buggy were deserted by the two bandits, who are nov hid- ing somewhere between Indian and Coarse Gold gulches, and to-day Super visor Ellis went to Hornitos, where the rig of the bandits was being kept by the Sheriff, and positively identified the horse and the buggy as the one he had seen in the deserted barn near Cross Creek only a few hours before the train was stopped
 When the officers captured the buggy they found the camp outfit of the ban dits with it. Two pairs of blankets were tied in tight roll and bound With peculiarly worn cotton rope Some short pieces of rope similar to the piece that bound the blankets were found in the barn where Supervisor Ellis saw the bandits, and pieces of similar rope were used in binding to- gether the sticks of giant powder that were used to wreck the baggage car and to blow open the safe of Wells Fargo's messenger. The Sheriffs believe that the bandits prepared the bombs they used while in the barn and left pieces of rope behind them when they had completed their work
 Ellis is positive of his Identification of the horse and buggy. The horse the bandits deserted was the black one. What they did with the sorrel has not yet been learned. The black horse was branded on the left bip with an "H the second downward stroke of which had Well-defined curve to the right like J" turned the wrong way. The animal had a peculiarly shaped head and Ellis, being an expert horseman said it was a horse not easy to forget The buggy had some peculiar trim mings to the dashboard, and Ellis pro nounced it the same vehicle the mo ment he saw it to-day.
 This identification of the pronertv abandoned by the bandits is in the opinion of the Sheriffs, conclusive evi- dence that they are on the right trail From all that can be learned the roh- bers have now only a Scant slDnlv of food and the officers expect hourly to hear of them raiding some of the cab ins of the prospectors that are scat tered sparsely along the trail the ban dts are taking. The two men are on foot and are travelling slowly. Appar- ently they are remaining under cover during the day and taking advantage of the darkness to put as much distance as they can between themselves and their pursuers.
 The last authentic trace received of