Cora Hubbard had scarcely arrived at her father's home in Weir City when the posse hit town. They enlisted the help of the city marshal, Jim Hatton, who scouted the Hubbard residence at the edge of town under the pretext of borrowing Sam Hubbard's tar kettle. The marshal saw that Cora was there and went back to the posse to report his findings. As the possemen were returning to the Hubbard residence, they discovered Cora's brother Bill on the street and promptly arrested him for his role in the Pineville robbery. After escorting him to the city jail, they went back to the Hubbard residence, and one of the deputies rapped on the door with the muzzle of his rifle. When Cora opened the door, the deputy presented his Winchester and ordered her to put up her hands. She did so calmly and with no sign of fear, but rather, according to one account, 'like a child at play putting up its hands before a toy pistol.'

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Cora, now wearing a calico dress, was hustled off to the city jail barefoot. Later that same day, she and her brother were transported back to Missouri, and during a layover at a Joplin hotel, Joe Yeargain bought her some shoes and stockings. Cora put them on in the presence of her guards and a newspaperman, who reported that she did so 'without any special display of modesty on her part.'

On the evening of August 24, Marshal Hatton became suspicious that some of the loot taken in the bank robbery might be hidden at the Hubbard residence, and he and a deputy returned to search the place. They uncovered $25 in the garden buried in a hill of peppers. The next day they came back at dawn and found another $141 buried in a hill of potatoes. Also on the premises they found the men's clothes worn by Cora Hubbard during the holdup and a Colt .45 revolver with the name 'Bob Dalton' etched on the handle and seven notches carved near the trigger guard. Cora had often bragged around Weir City that she had been with the Dalton Gang in earlier years and that she had Bob Dalton's six-shooter. The discovery seemed to confirm what had previously been passed off as an idle boast, and the notches were presumed to represent the number of men killed with the Colt.

Marshal Hatton wired Pineville about his discoveries, and cashier Shields and McDonald County Sheriff Richard Jarrett arrived in Weir City on the morning of August 26. The officers had gathered at the Hubbard residence to further interrogate Sam when John Sheets drove up unaware in a buggy and was promptly arrested. Found in the buggy were $91 taken during the McDonald County Bank robbery and a .45-caliber six-shooter. Along with Sheets, Sam Hubbard was also arrested and taken back to Missouri because of his reluctance to cooperate with officers in their search for the loot.

However, both Sam and his son Bill were released at Pineville on August 28, the day of the preliminary hearing for the three bank robbers. With rifle in hand, Cora Hubbard posed for a picture dressed in the male attire she had worn during the holdup, and then she, John Sheets and Whit Tennyson were bound over for trial and returned to the Newton County jail in Neosho. They were convicted of bank robbery in January 1898 and sentenced to the state prison at Jefferson City — Hubbard and Sheets for 12 years each and Tennyson for 10. The Missouri governor commuted Cora's sentence the day after Christmas in 1904, and she was released on New Year's Day 1905. During her imprisonment, the one-time bank robber had let her hair grow out but had apparently done little else to enhance her feminine allure in the eyes of the reporter who described her at the time of her release as'short in stature with…black eyes and a greasy dark complexion.'

This article was written by Larry Wood and originally appeared in the June 2004 issue of Wild West.

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