The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1891-01-30

consultation, and the miner carafnllw
studied thS lay III tho land. Ha was
81 tho opinion that IL was 4 short. drv.
rift, with cave At the far end. Three
sides were enclosed hy walls of earth
and rock, and cur only way was TO at
tack the men from above. How high
we would have 10 climb or what the
difficulties. we could not say. We were
not three minutes deciding to make
the attempt, and we prepared for It by
leaving coats, vests, hats, and boots
behind. We began the ascent about a
hundred feet back from the mouth of
the rift, and | do not believe two pam
theirs could have done better. The
side of the mountain was thickly COW
cred with cedars, vines, and rocks, and
progress was made almost entirely by
creeping. Once we drew ourselves up
q cliff full twenty feet high by 4
grapevine hanging down. and again we
made use Of \ tree 10 seek n higher ele-
vation. We had been going up for half
an hour before we bore off to the right
III the direction of the rift. We then
bad TO move far more cautiously, and
/ presume il was a full hour from the
time we left the valley before we Law
ON our stomachs n hundred feet above
the campfire and looked over. The
men were directly beneath Us, seated
close together, and were smoking as
they counted the money.
We had but one way to attack.
Luckily for us it was Il straight de-
scent l could have dropped coin
fair upon the hat of the man beneath
me. We were out upon rocky shelf.
but there were loose stones OF all sizes
all about us. ] selected one weighing
about twenty-five pounds, the miner
got one equally as large. and we care
fully crept back to the edge with
them. The fall of the smallest peb-
Bile would startle the men below. and
we used as much caution as II our
lives would paw the forfeit After a
bit we were ready. The men had not
moved. For about minute | lost
my nerve. 1t seemed horrible thing
TO do. Had been alone / believe /
should have relented. The miner
seemed to read my thoughts, and he
put his mouth TO my ear and whis-
pered:
s'Remember how they shot the ranch
man. and remember that they take our
every shillingla
We poised the stones ON the edge of
the cliff. and at whispered Now
from him we dropped them. heard
them strike. and drew back. He
peered over, aud after n moment re-
covered his balance and said:
Now we can 60 down. Those chaps
will never rob another coachr'
IL took US longer to go down than to
come up. but we made the descent in
safety, and walked around to and up
the rift. The fire had nearly died out.
We replenished it, and then saw that
both men were dead. It was a horri-
BILE sight and one do not care TO de-
scribe. Our rock had fallen squarely
down upon their heads, and you can
imagine the result There was a dry,
airy cave but q few feet away, and the
gang had made the place a rendezvous
for n long time. We recovered every
dollar our coach had been robbed of
and more than as much again which
had been taken from others. The
cave had a big supply of iirea rms,
blankets. and provisions, and in a
mailbag hanging on the wall were ten
gold and silver watches. We cot al
together sixteen watches. five or six
valuable Plus, and firearms worth at
least 5000. We not only secured the
wealth. but we made an even divide
and kept every dollar OF il. An at
tempt was made in Stockton to COM
pei us to .'divyn with several people
who had been robbed, but it was
failure. As the tourist was out of
ready cash we gave him 5000, but we
would not even sell the lieutenant
back his watch at any price. Ii was
told all over the slope that our haul
amounted 10 $25, ZOO. If it did we
earned every dollar of it, besides
wiping out a bad gang and leaving the
stage line clear for the next six
montlss-Nes0 York San.