Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-09-18
Hoic Nevada Stage Drtver Protected the
| Cash BOC

Golden Era.
Ho.c Nerada Stage Drtver Protected the
Cash Boa.
"'Taint no use trying ordinarily to save
anything but your lives when gang of
road agents as knows their business tack
les stage coah, remarked Long Bill to
San Francisco Chronicle reporter. GA
party of men standing on the ground,
with everything ready, no horses to
tend to, and nothing to do but sight their
shootlng-irons and pleasantly suggest to
the driver to hand down the cash box,
has big edge in the game. The driver
and guards, or shotgun messengers as
we call them in the mountains, can't help
being taken more or less by surprise;
and may remark right here, that until
you have been suddenly called upon to
look down the opening of double
barreled shotgun which has road agent
with his hand on the trigger at the other
end, you have no idea how surprised you
are capable Of being. have been there.
| have had a seven shooter pulled on me
across the faro table. l have proved that
the hilt of dirk can't 60 between my
ribs. l have seen four aces beaten by a
royal flush; but l was never really sur
prised until looked down the muZzle Of
double barreled shotgun in the hands
of road agent Why, my friend, the
mouth of the Sutro tunnel is like nail
hole in the Pacific hotel, compared to a
shotgun, from a certain point of view
But this is all misdeal. was going to
tell you about the time did see couple
of &c of In q
plucky little stage driver running out Of
times on the road, but still driving,
though after a man is stopped twice the
company generally let's him do something
else for a living, without intimating that
he is friend of the robbers.
Well, this driver l speak of--Dutch
Jake we called him-had worked for the
company for long time, and they knew
him to be dead square man. Jake felt
dreadful bad about having been stopped
three times, and cleaned out each time,
land swore the shotgun messengers he
took along for guards were a lot of cow
ardly blowhards. The next time Jake
had consignment of bullion in his box
he begged hard not to have to take along
any messengers with him. At that time
you could almost count on an attempt be-
ing made to rob every stage with bullion
on board The Aurara bullion was just
the kind the road agents liked. 1t was
run in small bars, and SO rich in gold
that it had the yellow color, not like the
the heavy white brick you see on the
Comstock now.
Jake solemnly declared he had a scheme
to fool dose dam roat agents. so the
stage manager agreed not to send any
guards with him When the time came
to hitch up for the trip to Wellington's
on the Carson road, Jake went down to
the stable and insisted upon having the
ugliest pair of mules that ever winked
death with hind leg put in as lead
team. "I'll chow how mule vas more
smart as a guard" said Jake confidently,
as he whipped out of town with myself
as the only outside passenger. If
we get call tonight, Phil, shust you
drop down in tie boot, cause me and dose
mules vas goin' to haf some fun no.
ticed that Jake had a shotgun cooked
and pointed straight ahead, and told him if
he was stopped and attempted to raise the
gun, he would get shot sure. Hesaid that
he did not propose to made such fool of
L
thought the robbers would carefully place
themselves in line of the gun, which
appeared to be pointed at the lead mules
ears, he said:
, "'Nefer you mind, Phil; / knows dose
mules. If we gets call, you drop into
tie boot; dots ALL Well, sure enough,
we got call. We were jogging along
over an easy bit of road, when about 9
O'Clock couple of road agents sprang
out from some chaparral One grabbed
the bits of the lead mules, and the other
walked toward the coach with his gun
leveled, and said, Throw out that box
Just as he got opposite the hind legs of
the lead team, Jake's shotgun went off,
and we both went into the boot. l
thought every bone in my
body would be splintered before
Jake crawled out, gathered up the
reins, and finally got the teams quieted
down. At the pop of Jake's gun, the
mules and horses had started off on a
mad run, and we must have bumped,
ratified and dragged over ten miles of the
road before Jake took the reins again.
The only damage was to the mules. Jake
had shot away the inside ear of each
mule."
'But what became of the two rob-
bers?" asked the reporter, as Long Bill
stopped in his story.
''The robbers! Well, l really don't
know. The company would have buried
them, l suppose, if enough of them
could have been scraped off the chapar-
raj to put in a coffin. Those mules
always were considered high kickers."
Making Things Deer.