The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-07-17
GUARDIANs OF TIE Rlx.
bow the Shotgun Express Messenger
Fights the r lad Agents.
From the San Frnnciaco Ernr,iner

was bothered by stage robbers a few years
ago and shotgun messenger was put on TO
protect it. On his first trip out he was ex-
pectlng trouble because the box contained q
large sum of money, and when, at turn in
the road mau stepped out with a rifle in
mis- hands, the messenger did not wait for
any order to halt, but blazed away and
filed with buckshot a prominent citizen of
the county.
The prominent citizen being dead. his
friends asserted that he was going out on
the road to guard dangerous spot and as
slst In protecting the stage, and that the
messenger had made a deplorable mistake
and fired too soon. There was no evidence
to show that the man intended to hold up
the stage, because the messenger didn't give
him time to order the driver to
stop, but there are folks in Placer
county who lusinuate that it is no dead sure
thing that the messenger made much of a
mis- AXE after all. They say that a man
who goes out on the road with a rifle to as
slst a shotgun messenger in protecting y
stage, without taking the precaution to
notify the messenger that he will be there.
has more public spirit than good sense, and
their grief over his death is greatly miti-
gated by the reflection that the number of
fools is diminished by one.
Black Bart was almost always successful
In his attempts upon stages, but he didn't
fool with messengers very often. He made
mistake once, and tried to hold I'D the
Laporte and Marysville stage when George
Hackett was on the box Hackett lust
missed blowing the top of his head off. ana
Bart retired to the woods with two buck
shot in his scalp. About three miles further
along the road another ambitious road
agent showed up, and Hackett again UNI
limbered his gun. The second robber ran
away, leaving trail of blood
Messenger q. H. Ward, who had brush
with Road Agent Miller near Redding last
March, and missed killing Miller only be-
cause the hammer of his gun was bent and
didn't strike the primer, has had several
lively meetings on the road.
In 1884 Ward was on the stage going.
from Cloverdale to Mendocieno city. In
the night two men sprang out of the woods
and ordered the driver to stop, but the
stage was on steep down grade and the
driver couldn't have stopped if he had
wanted to. The selection Of such a piece Of
road as the scene of a hold-up showed that
the robbers were amateurs and did not I'M
derstand the art Of stage robbing One of
them fired almost Immediately after Civ
ing the order to halt, and filed Wards
hand with q lot Of ragged bits of lead His
weapon apparently was a musket, aud in
place of shots be had loaded it with scraps
whitfield from bullet.
Ward returned the fire and hit one of the
robbers, and as he turned in his seat to get
another shot a rihe-bullet FREQ by the
second robber plowed through the breast
of his coat and made a hole in the drivers
hat The firing frightened the horses and
they ran down the grade and took the coach
out of range. Wards hand was not perna-
nently disabled.
News of the robbery was wired that night
to San Francisco, and the next day De-
tective Thacker went to the scene to in
vestigate the affair. he was joined by
Doc" Stanley, sheriff of Mendocino, and
the messenger.
The three officers first carefully examined
the ground where the men stood when they
ordered the driver to stop, and there they
found an ak and coffee sack. The ak had
been taken along by the robbers to break
open the box in case of a successful attack
Spots of blood were discovered on the
ground, and some broken brush close by
showed that the charge Of buckshot fired by
Ward had passed about the hight of a mans
knee. The robber had been hit in the upper
part Of the leg.
Nothing else was found there, and the
three officers then began the slow and tedi-
GUS work OF trailing the robbers through
the woods. They had gone over the mount
aims toward the coast and had about thirty
six hours start. The officers did not ex-
pect to catch up with them, because the
robbers not only had long start, but could
travel faster than the pursuers, who had to
follow their trail The most expert trailer
must go slowly at times, and frequently he
is delayed long time by losing the tracks
and being obliged to make circuits in order
to find them again.
In the pursuit of the Mendocino robbers
Thacker and his companions spent a week
in the mountains, but they never caught the
robbers
John Martin of Calistoga, brother-in-law
of Charley Foss, and himself a noted stage
driver, Is the inventor of the method of
knocking out road agents without the assist
ance OF shotgun messenger. Martin had
a job OF hauling a treasure box over the
mountains one dark night, and, as there
were no passengers, he hitched to light
buggy a pair of well-bred, mettlesome
horses belonging to himself. instead of
using any of the stage company's stock.
The horses were fleet and spirited, and had
been trained to obey their masters voice.
They would stop instantly at a word or
spring forward in a run, and when Martin
was behind them the reins and whip were
scarcely needed.
At a dark and lonesome place In the road,
when the horses were jogging along easily,
a man stepped out from the brush with a
VI III MS uduu htlu SLOOu ulT6CJIy IN 'front.'
of the team. Martin barely caught sight
Of the dark figure. and, sizing up the situa-
ton in flash, he leaned forward and spoke
sharply to his horses. The spirited animals
leaped ahead as if they had been stung, and
in the first bound the horse on the off side
struck the robber fairly in the breast and
and sent him down with crash on the
hard road. The animals hind hoofs struck
with muftied sound, there was low
moan from under the buggy, and as the
team flew along Martin glanced over his
shoulder and caught glimpse Of a dark
form lying motionless on the road.
The boldnesS and activity of Road Agent
Sharp and his partner, Dowd on the Auro-
ra line in 1850 made business lively for the
detectives ami trailers. The sage was held
up with exasperating regularity, and even
borsemen and foot passengers were stopped
aud robned on the road. The officers en-
gagged a number OF Piutes to track the rob-
bers, having d notion that the Indian could
follow a trail like bloodhound. The trail
from the scene of on 70 of the robberies led
into barron, rocky stretch of country,
aud the Piutes made slow prog ess in fol-
lowing it, They mad to examine the rocks
infinitely for scratches and marks, and
even the best of them found it difficult TO
tell what rocks had been disturbed.
While the officers and the Indians were
pirooting around among the rocks Sharp
and his partner slipped back to the road and
held up the stage on the return trip at the
same point. That piece OF impudence
aroused the company's ire, aud a whole
army OF shotgun messengers was ordered up
to Nevada,