February 18, 1873, one Tom Hayes was detected passing counterfeit money at Cairo, Ill., but it was not discovered that "Tom Hayes" was none other than the much-wanted John Ogle until after he had made good his escape. So chagrined were the officers over this second break that all the resources of the department were employed to effect his capture, and but a week had passed before he was found in Pittsburg and taken to Springfield, Ill., for trial. This time there was no escape, and he served five years in Joliet. As he stepped from the prison door Marshal Thrall, of Cincinnati, confronted him with an order for his removal to answer the indictment of May, 1872. The Cincinnati jail was undergoing repairs. A painter had left his overalls and hickory shirt in the corridor near the cage where Ogle was placed. Adroitly picking the lock of his cell with his penknife, he donned the painter's clothes, took up a paint-bucket, and coolly walked down-stairs, past the gate (which the guard obligingly opened for him), through the jailer's office, and into the street. Proceeding leisurely until out of sight of the prison, the daring criminal made his way to the river, which he crossed at Lawrenceburg, and, discarding his borrowed apparel, struck across the country, finally bringing up at Brandenburg, Ky., where he obtained employment as a stonecutter. Respectability was, however, inconsistent with Ogle's early training; so about a week after his arrival he broke into a shoe-house of the town, stole $200 worth of goods, and was arrested three days later while trying to dispose of his plunder in Louisville. Fearing a term in the Frankfort prison for some reason, he informed the Kentucky officers that a large reward was offered for his return to Cincinnati. This had the desired effect, and he was sent to the Ohio penitentiary to serve five years.
Returning to Cincinnati at the expiration of this enforced confinement, he met his brother, who had just been released from an eight-year "trick" in the Western Pennsylvania penitentiary, and, altho no real affection existed in the breast of either for the other, John needed money, and Miles had money and required assistance in a contemplated enterprise. An understanding was soon reached, and these two dangerous lawbreakers joined forces in another scheme to debase their country's currency. Using the same conveyance employed by their father in his plundering expedition (a house-boat), they started from Cincinnati and drifted down the Ohio River, John steering and keeping watch while Miles plied the graver. When the plates for a twenty-dollar silver note and a ten-dollar issue of the Third National Bank of Cincinnati were complete, Miles took the helm and John went below to do the printing. $150,000 of the "coney" had been run off by the time they reached the mouth of the Wolf River, and here the trip ended. Disposing of the boat, the brothers started back to Cincinnati. _En route_ they quarreled over the division of the notes, and separated with the understanding that John was to receive $500 of the proceeds of the first sales.