The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1881-10-20
ROBBING A STAGE.
HOW A PAIR OF MULES SAVED THE
CASH BOX.

CASH BOX.
''Taint no use trying ordinarily to
fave anything but your lives when gang
# road agents as knows their business
;ackles stage COACH" remarked Long
bill to Chronicle reporter. ga party
of men standing on the ground, with
everything ready, no horses to tend to
sad nothing to do but sight their shoot
nig-irons and pleasantly suggest to the
driver to hand down the cash box, has a
big edge in the game. The driver and
guards, or shot gun 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 a double barreled
shotgun, which has road agent with
bis hand on the trigger at the other end,
you can have no idea how surprised you
are capable of being. have been thar.
have had seven shooter pulled on me
across faro table; 1 have proved that
the hilt of dirk can't go between my
ribs; l have seen four aces beaten by a
royal flush; but / was never really sur
prised until looked down the muzzle of
a double -barreled shotgun in the hands
OF road agent. Why, my friend, the
mouth of the Sutro tunnel is like nail
hole i'll the Pacific Hotel compared to a
shotgun, from a certain point of view.
But this is all a misdeal. I was going to
tell you about the time I did see couple
of road agents left. In '63 there was a
plucky little stage-driver running out of
Aurora who had been stopped three times
on the road, but still driving, though af-
ter man is stopped twice the company
generally let's him do something else for
a living, without intimating that he is
any friend of the robbers
SWELL, this driver I speak of-Dutch
Jake, we called Mm-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,
and swore the shotgun messengers he
took along for guards were lot of cow
ardIy 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
being made to rob every stage with bul :
lion on board. The Aurora bullion was
just the kind the road agents liked. It
----- ~ --~,-l1 L--~. 1----I ,~rl
that it had the yellow color, not like the
heavy white bricks you see on the Com
stock now. Jake declared solemnly he
had scheme to fool dose 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 Yelling
toms, 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 ip as
lead team. I'll zhow how mule vas
more smart as guard said Jake, con-
fidently, as he whipped up out of town,
with myself rs the only outside passen-
ger. If we gets call to night, Phil,
shust you drop down in te boot, cause
me ant does mules vas goin' to haf some
fun. I noticed that Jake had a shotgun,
cooked and pointed straight ahead, and
told him if he was stopped and attempt
ed to raise the gun he would get shot,
sure. He said he did not propose to
make such fool of himself, and when I
asked him if he thought the robbers
would carefully place themselves in line
OF the gun, which appeared to be point
ed at the lead mules ears, he said: !:
Meier you mind, Phil; I knows dose
mules. If we get call, you drop into
de 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 dropped into the boot. I
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 mad run, and we must
have been bumped, ratified and dragged
over ten miles of 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, I really don't
know. The company would have buried
them, Isuppose, if enough of them could
have been scraped off the chaparral to
put in a coffin. Those mules were always
considered high kickers."
HE progress of railway building in
India continues to be rapid. Much was
done during the Afghan war, but the