Little was left to chance. Butch and a few selected gang members would spend days, sometimes weeks, scouting a robbery site and the best escape route. Wisely, they always chose the summer months for all their holdups, when the weather was favorable for eluding posses. It appears that Cassidy also avoided killing. Although shots were fired during escapes, Butch was never known to have shot anyone during a holdup. The closest Butch ever came to harming a robbery victim was when he used explosives to force his way into an express car. A few express messengers were injured in the blasts, but none seriously. The gang always warned them when they would use dynamite, and they were wise enough to protect themselves by hiding behind the cargo. The powerful railroad companies hired Pinkerton Agents to put an end to the robberies and The Wild Bunch. Pinkerton detective Charlie Siringo, who called Cassidy "the shrewdest and most daring outlaw of the present age," trailed the gang all over the West, often posing as an outlaw to search for the robbers. Were you aware that Butch and Sundance tried to avoid harming everyday people during their robberies?

A break for the Pinkerton agents seems to have been the result of one of Cassidy's legendary larks. In 1900, some of the Wild Bunch was in Texas to visit their favorite brothels and blow off some steam. They decided to get a formal portrait taken as a joke. This picture of the Sundance Kid, Will Carver, Ben Kilpatrick, Harvey Logan (Kid Curry) and Cassidy was a rare misstep for him. It is said a Wells Fargo agent recognized the outlaws when the photo was displayed in the photographer's Fort Worth studio window. It was soon on wanted posters throughout the West. For all the clever planning they did, isn't it surprising that this photo was such a big mistake?

By 1900, it appears Cassidy was tired of life on the run. A lawyer claimed Cassidy came to visit him, curious if he could get a pardon and settle down for good. When he was told it would be impossible, Cassidy was understanding. "You know the law, and I guess you're right," he said. "But I'm sorry it can't be fixed some way. You'll never know what it means to be forever on the dodge." The Wild Bunch pulled their last major robbery at the First National Bank of Winnemucca, Nevada, on September 19, 1900. This robbery may have been to fund a new life in South America, far from Pinkerton detectives. Their journey first took them to the East Village of New York City, where that February they made arrangements to travel by steamship to Buenos Aires. Accompanying Sundance on the long voyage to South America was the beautiful and mysterious Ethel "Etta" Place. Have you ever been to Argentina in South America?

While in New York, Longabaugh found time to pose for a portrait with Place at Joseph B. De Young's Photographic Gallery at 826 Broadway and 12th Street—advertised as the "Largest Photographic Gallery in the City." On discovering the photo, the Pinkertons wasted no time in alerting their field offices, and soon members of the law enforcement establishment possessed a clear image of the wanted criminal and the woman they suspected to be his wife. The couple in the photo scarcely look like a weathered outlaw and his soiled dove. In fact, the image reveals a handsome couple, most likely posing for their wedding portrait. Sundance sports a formal evening coat with a bowtie and holds a top hat. Ethel wears a walking dress with a matching bolero jacket, and her hair is pinned high with a bow in the "Gibson Girl" style of the day. The couple stares serenely into the camera lens, seemingly unaware of their place in history. Click. Would you like to read this book about Etta Place?

It was not long before the trio were accused of bank robberies in South America. Place eventually returned to the States (disappearing into history), and Cassidy and Sundance ended up in Bolivia. On November 6, 1908, the pair were said to have stolen payroll from a mining company's courier in San Vicente, Bolivia. A few days later, the Bolivian Cavalry surrounded the house where they were staying. A subsequent shootout left a man believed be Sundance injured. That evening, soldiers heard two shots coming from inside the house, and found the two men dead with bullet wounds in the head. The men were buried in a nearby Indian cemetery. When news filtered back to the U.S. that Cassidy and Sundance had been killed, none of their friends seemed to have particularly believed the story. Sightings of Cassidy began almost immediately. In the early 1990s, two bodies believed to be Cassidy and Sundance were exhumed in Bolivia. DNA tests conducted by Clyde Snow, one of the nation's foremost forensic anthropologists determined they were not Cassidy and Sundance. Do you believe that Butch and Sundance went onto new lives with new identities.?