Soon after, Chris married Mary Jane “Molly” Byrd, a girl he met who ran an eating house along the road to the mills at a location known as Auckland, twenty-five miles northeast of Visalia.

He also pointed to the fact that the transcontinental railroad would be a necessary advantage in the war effort by connecting the east and west coasts which would in turn secure a steady flow of gold and silver from California.

In the midst of this widespread economic depression, the Big Four were building themselves huge majestic mansions neighboring each other on Nob Hill in San Francisco all while gaining immense wealth and power.

Tired of working seasonal wage jobs that kept him away from his family for weeks at a time, Chris decided to farm the land he had previously bought with his mother-in-law on the forty acres south of town.

Due to the high short-haul rate, shipping from Visalia to Goshen was too expensive and it was more economical for Chris to haul the beans by wagon to the main Southern Pacific line at Tulare.

One of the robbers noticed the stowaway and, thinking he was an armed man coming to interrupt the robbery, quickly dropped down, wielded his shotgun in between the engineer's legs, and fired his gun from under the car.

On the night of February 6, 1891, a Southern Pacific Railroad passenger train was held up by two masked men who carried only 44-calibre revolvers, near the town of Alila (present day Earlimart, California).

When Sheriff Kay arrived on the scene, he discovered evidence of a camp made nearby the site of the robbery, as well as horse tracks that led west towards the Coast Range.

A few day later, Kay arrested Bill Dalton and Riley Dean at an abandoned Overland Stage station at Cross Creek where they looked as if they were either planning to rob a train, or break Grat from jail.

Wells Fargo and the Southern Pacific were also notified that George C. Contant, alias Sontag, had been tracked to Visalia by the Pinkerton Detective agency under suspicion that he was involved with a train robbery near Kasota, Minnesota, that June, along with an associate named Charles Naughton.

Sheriff Kay and railroad detectives then began interrogating George Sontag, who reportedly told them, “If you find me guilty of train robbery, you hang me up.” The next day a group of officers went to the Evans’ home and ransacked the place in front of the crying mother and children.

On August 30, Wells Fargo Detectives James B. Hume and John Thacker, both known for capturing the famous stagecoach robber Black Bart, made an investigation of Evans’ home, assisted by Will Smith, Vic Wilson, and Frank Burke.

On September 6, 1892, Wells Fargo & Company and the Southern Pacific Railroad posted a bounty of $10,000 for the arrest and delivery of Chris Evans and John Sontag to Fresno or Tulare Counties.

During this time, plans were made by the Evans family for the outlaws to escape to South America with the help of a prominent benefactor, later rumored to have been M. Theo Kearney, “Raisin King of California”.

When the driver was interrogated on the whereabouts of Will Smith he told the outlaws that the detective had bought a ticket, but failed to show up that morning after being called to report to the railroad headquarters in San Francisco.

On May 27, Deputy Marshal Samuel Black, who had been hunting the outlaws since October, was shot several times while returning to his cabin from the saloon at Camp Badger with his friend Tom Burns.

On June 4, the famous poet Joaquin Miller released an interview with Evans and Sontag for the San Francisco Examiner titled, The Bard and The Bandit, which he claimed took place under the General Grant tree in Sequoia National Park.

The famous photograph of John Sontag in front of Marshal Gard's posse had become a popular cabinet card, and the cabin at the Stone Corral had been disassembled shortly after the shootout and put on display in San Francisco for an unrelated melodrama titled, The Train Wreckers, drawing large crowds.

[12] On October 19, Fresno Sheriff Jay Scott received a telegram from an informant in Visalia, warning him that Chris Evans was planning to escape from the county jail with the help of several friends.

On December 14, 1893, fifteen days since the trial began, the jury announced their verdict finding Christopher Evans guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced him to life imprisonment in Folsom State Prison.

One Visalia Times editor even wrote, “It is such miscarriages of justice that make law-abiding people resort to lynch law, and the jurors who rendered this verdict ought to be ashamed of themselves.” Chris was distraught after learning he would not have a chance at an appeal and would be spending the rest of his life in a prison.

Evans and Morrell had noticed the trailing posse and decided to walk the boardwalk of the Kings River Lumber flume until they reached its end at the logging town of Millwood, only a few miles from General Grants Grove.

Evans' old camp at Fort Defiance, not far up Dry Creek from the Downings, had been discovered and reported by H. D. Barton of Auckland shortly after the shootout at the Stone Corral and was no longer a viable hideout.

As several men in the posse attempted to move to the other side of the cabin to get a crossfire, deputy Timmins stepped on a twig and caused Evans' pet cat to sound the alarm.

Still, there was animosity held by the Southern Pacific toward Lovern; he had furnished the guns that were used in George Contant's prison break attempt, his saloon was a haven for known criminals, and it was suspected by officers that he had served as a "fence" for Evans and Sontag.

She obtained letters from jury foreman J. N. Reese, deputy district attorney Alva Snow, and even former Fresno County Sheriff Jay Scott, who recommended clemency and commutation of Chris’ sentence.

It was noted by many however, including George Contant upon his release, that Chris bragged about his time as an outlaw, denying that he had ever robbed a train, and said he only killed in self defense and because of this he would most likely spend the remainder of his life behind bars.

The spot where the Evans house once sat was then an auto repair shop and she noted that the area was now full of orange and citrus groves, much like her father predicted there would be, but that many of the old oaks had been cut down.

After this experience, Eva decided to write her own memoir with the help of Perry entitled, An Outlaw and His Family, in order to give the “true account” of her father's story, but it would remain unpublished.

[13] Morris Ankrum and John Smith portrayed Evans and Sontag, respectively, in an episode of the 1955 syndicated television series Stories of the Century, starring and hosted by Jim Davis.