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at once from Kansas City.
Bridges and highway junctions were barricaded and guarded. State
patrolmen scooted up & down all main roads. A National Guard
plane, fitted with a two-way radio and a machine gun, was sent from St.
Louis. Yet through this massed force of the Law, Floyd and his two
companions filtered northward to Minnesota, only to cut back into Iowa,
and down to Missouri. Near Mexico, Mo., a salesman reported that he had
been forced at gun's point to push a stalled car in which he was sure
sat Floyd. A few miles south 25 peace officers beat their way through a
cornfield in pursuit, found nothing but husks. Near Moberly, Mo., a
woman let into her farmhouse three men who wanted soap and water,
told her one of them had cut his finger. After asking her if she had
any weapons to fit .32 or .38 calibre cartridges, they left. An hour
later a garage owner said a man tendered him five $100 bills for a new
car, then fled in the old car when he began inspecting the notes. And
all the time "Pretty Boy" Floyd was working steadily
southward to his favorite haven —the Cookson Hills. Tulsa, Okla.,
added a final flourish to the affair by lodging against Floyd one more
charge: parking overtime three years ago in the business section.
*Largest was the St. Valentine's Day massacre in 1929 when
seven gangsters were killed in a Chicago garage.
