The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1891-09-12

pointed at his head from behind the
tree. The stage driver, being common
ly man of sense and good judgment,
puts on the brake and stops instantly.
"Throw down the box" is the next
| order, and the driver tosses out the eX-
press box. Sometimes the man behind
the tree wants the mail sacks, too and,
if he is very greedy and bold, he orders
the passengers to jump out and empty
| their pockets. Usually the passengers
tumble over one another in their haste
to obey the orders of the man with the
| gun, and he makes good haul of
watches and loose change.
If the robber is alone nobody need
lose much wealth in a hold-up, howev-
err. The robbcr will not throw himself
off guard to search the pockets of lot
of passengers. 1t is his business to
keep them covered with his gun, and
he depends upon their terror to induce
them to give up what he would not
search for. 1t requires an artistic OPP
orator and one with supreme audacity
to go through whole stage load of
people and clean them out to the ulti-
mate nickel, but California can proud
ly boast of having produced such art
lists. One way of doing the trick is to
pretend that another robber is con-
cealed in the brush close by.
"Jim, you keep these galoots covered
while go through 'em," remarks the
road agent, in a cool, matter-of-fact
way, after he has ranged the fright
ened passengers in row with their
hands above their heads And then he
goes through them without undue
haste, making facetious remarks as he
brings up the plunder.
The lone highwayman of Shasta,
who was captured recently, had a very
neat method of taking care of passen-
gers when they were numerous enough
to be troublesome. His outfit consist
ed of a siX-shooter and bundle of
barley sacks. He stopped the inward
bound stage within the town limits of
Redding, and put barley sack over
the head of every man in the crowd
Just as he had finished that part of the
job the outward bound stage drove up,
and he stopped that and bagged the
heads of all hands. Then a tfarmer
happened along and he was treated
similarly A citizen of Redding, driv-
ing for doctor, fell into the trap and
joined the barley-sack brigade, and
then came the schoolmarm of the dis
trict, who was told to stop and sit still
in her buggy, which she did. The lone
robber explored the pockets of the
crowd, broke open the express boxes,
and quietly slipped away into the
woods, and the bagged victims didn't
dare to move until the schoolmarm
began to laugh at their ridiculous as
pect, and told them the robber had
gone.
In the hands of road agent entirely
great fence picket is as mighty as d
two-shot scatter gun. The Gilroy stag,
was toiling up a long hill at dusk some
years ago when the driver saw some
thing white futtering just ahead, ant
his leaders stopped with their breasts
! against a rope sire tched across the
road A handkerchief was futterins
from the center of the rope. The
driver put on the brake, and theI
somebody standing by a tree at tht
side of the road told him to throw
down the box. He glanced towarC
the person who spoke and saw
masked man pointing something a
5 him. He threw down the box, tn
) masked man cut the rope and told hin
: to drive on, and the stage went on it
! way. The next day the officers foun
the broken express box, the rope, an
an old fence picket in the road, but the.
never found the masked man,
The express box is the main attrac
ton for the road agent, and sometime
it is an affiiction to his soul In tn
natural order of things it ought to con
tain wealth, but the heartless expires
companies sometimes load it wit
bricks and cause great loss of tim
and anguish of spirit to an industriou
and painstaking robber. When rot
berries were the rule and safe trips tn
exception in California, the expires
companies invented the dummy bo
and worked it off frequently on the Ell
terprising agent, but the joke didn
last long, The agent acquired tn
habit of bursting the box in the pres
ence of the driver and then profanel
requesting him to hand out the othe
box, and no blanked foolishness. A
the drivers weren't hired to be sho
they discouraged the use of the DUNN
box, and it was abandoned by all tn
well regulated lines, although it wa
e worked in occasionally on some amt
S teur robber. When Budd Philpott wa
c driving the Lakeport stage robbie
IS held him up, and Budd cheerily tosse
n out an empty box belonging to tn
Great Western mine, and drove alon
$ with the Wells-Fargo box safely stowe
e under his feet
d The scheme of building an iron bo
o into the body of the coach worked fc
II time, but the road agents beat tht
:. game by sending the driver and pa
e sengers along the road afoot an
d breaking into the box at their leisur
7, with cold chisels. AS they usually COZ
e cluded the evenings entertainment b
&c setting fire to the coach and burnin
If up one thousand dollars worth of I'll
y companys property, besides runnin
r away with the horses. the stageme
concluded that the iron-boX schen
,f didn't pay.
y Going through the mail sacks used I
be tedious job for road agent, and
TO didn't often pay for the time waste,
" Besides, it doubled the number of pu
e. suers by setting all the United Stat,
Is marshals on the hunt for the robbie
'p and when caught it landed him in IL
d United States court and insured
a heavy sentence. Nevertheless a gre
IN deal of money is sent by mail, and, fl