The Opelousas courier., 1891-11-07
HOLD UP YOUR HANDS"
HOW BRAVE STAGE MEN DEFY
THE FIERCE ROAD AGENTS.
Dangers in the Life Of the Men Who
Precede the Railway Engineer
and ConductOr.

and Conductor.
The stage from Auburn to Forest Hill
was bothered by stage robbers a few
years ago, and a shotgun messenger was
put on to protect it, says the San Fran
cisco Examiner. On the first trip out he
was expecting trouble because the box
contained a large sum of money, and
when, at a turn in the road, a man
stepped out with q rife in his hands,
the messenger did rot wait for any
order to halt, but blazed away and filed
with buckshot q prominent citizen Of
the county.
The prominent citizen being dead, his
friends asserted that he was d&ng out
on the road to guard a dangerous spot
and assist in protecting the stage, and
that the messenger had made a deplor-
able mistake and had fired too soon.
There was nc evidence to show that the
man intended to hold up the stage, be
cause the messenger didn't give him time
to order the driver to stop, but there are
folks In Placer County who %insinuate
that it is no dead sure thing that the
messenger made such of a mistake after
all. They say that q man who goes out
on the road with a rife to assist a shot.
gun messenger in protecting a stage,
without taking the precautioa 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 success
full in his attempts upon stages, but he
didn't fool with messengers very often.
He made q mistake once, and tried to
hold up the Laporte and Marysville
stage when George Hackett was on the
box. Hackett just missed blowing the
top of his head off, and Bart retired to
the woods with two buckshot in his
scalp. About three miles further along
the road another ambitious road agent
showed up, and Hackett again unlin-
bered his gun. The second robber ran
away, leaving a trail of blood.
Messenger G. H. Ward, who had a
brush with Road Agent Miller near Red.
ding last March, and missed killing Mil
Ter only because 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 Mendocino City. In
the night two men sprang out Of the
woods and ordered the driver to stop.
but the stage was on a steep down grad1
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 understand the art of stage.
robbing. One of them fired almost i'm
nediately after giving the order to halt,
and filled Wards hand with a lot oil
ragged bits of lead. His weapon ap-
parently was a muskef, and in place of
shot he had loaded it with scraps whit
tied from a bullet.
Ward returned the fire and hit one Of
the robbers, and as he turned in his seat
to get another shot a rifle bullet fred 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 badly mangled, but not per
manently disabled.
News Of the robbery was wired that
night to San Francisco, and the next day
Detective Thacker went to the scene to
Investigate the affair. He was Joined by
doc" Stanley, Sheriff of Mendoclno,
and the wounded messenger.
The three officers first carefully exam.
ined the ground where the men stood
when they ordered the driver to stop, and
there they found an axe and coffee-sac1.
Spots Of blood were discovered on the
ground, and some broken brush close by
showed that the charge of buekshot fred
by Ward had passed about tie height of
a mans knee. Clearly the robber had
been hit n the upper part of the leg.
Nothing else was found there, and
three officers began the slow and
tedious work of trailing the robbers
through the woods. They had gone
over the mountains toward the coast and
had about thirty-six hours $tart. The
officers did not expect to catch up with
them, because the robbers not only had
long start, but could travel faster thar
the pursuers, who had to follow their
The most expert trailer must go
at times, and frequently he is de
aged a long time by losing the tracks
md being obliged to make circuits in or
Ter to find them again.
In the pursuit of the Mendocino rob
oers Thacker and his companions spent
ibout u week in the mountains, but they
never caught the robbers.
John Martin, of Calistoga, brother-in-
aw of Charley Foss, and himself, a
noted st~age-driver, is the inventor of a
method of knocking out road agents
the assistance of a shotgun mess
Martin had a job Of hauling a
reasure box over the mountains one
lark night, and as there were no pas
engefs he hitched to a light buggy a
,air of well bred, mettlesome horses be.
to himself, instead of using any
# the stage c%ompany's stock. The
lorses were fleet and spirited aud had
'een trained to obey their masters voice.
would stop instantly at a word, or
prlug forward at a run, and when Mar.
in was behind them the reins and whip
we're scarcely needed at all. :
At a dark and lonesome place in the
DAD, when the horses were Jogging
long easily, a man stepped out from the
rush with a gun in his hand and stood