Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1894-04-12
HELD Up BY HER LOVER.
a H~ighwaymsn loses a Bride Through
Her Pluck as a Stage Driver.

Her Pluck as a Stage Driver.
"Of course you've heard innumer-
able rOmances of women stage drlv-
ers,' said f. c. Olcutt of Cheyenne to
a reporter. 80 have l, and most of
them are fiction, too, l have no doubt,
but l know of one in which every
word is true. The heroine of my story
was not the regular driver of h
roach which have in mind, but dur
ing the trip l speak of she was a
substitute for her brother, who wasa
farmer, and having been reared on
the farm she was noted for feats more
usual to men than women. For in
stance she was an excellent horse
could ride almost any horse,
wa a first rate shot and was not
afraid of anything. Often she had
driven the coach for her brother,
when from any cause he wanted to
have a day off. She did 1t well, too;
perfectly, in fact, and she was the
pride of all the people roundabout.
Now she had a lover, which was
perfectly natural and quite commend
able. Her lover lived with his par
ents on a neighboring farm. He
lacked a great deal of being a model
for a Y. NJ. G. A. superintendent, but
yet his infractions of tie ordinary
amenities of life were not so fla
grant and glaring as TO give him a no
torious character. Still, he was shift
less and inclined to wildness. He
would often go to town, be absent
three or four days and return very
reticent as to where he had been or
as to what he had been doing. This
morning my heroine cracked the
whip over the stage horses for her G0
mile drive. William-she called him
that, though the rest of the people
Whereabouts called him Wild Bill
was absent from home, supposedly
in Cheyenne.
The coach was a mail coach, OF
course, and aside from the revenue
derived from the government fol
carrying the mail had a good pas
senger traffic, for 10 years ago rail
roads were scarce in that country,
The coach left at 6 o'clock in the
morning and was due at its destina
ton at s o'clock in the evening. Ev
erything went well, the passenger.
were very merry until about :
o'clock in the evening. AT just abou'
that hour five men jumped out from
behind a bowlder III front of tn,
coach and demanded Hands up!
The nervy little woman on the boz
didn't hands up worth a cent. In
stead, she dropped her lines, grabbed
a winchester and was pouring a fu
sillade of bullets into the robbers be
fore they, in their a-mazement, coult
comprehend what was going on.
She so completely astonishe,
them that they for a second or tw,
didn't know straight up, as the say
ing goes. Her example inspired tn,
passengers to courage, and they, too
opened fire. The result was that al
the robbers save one fled in~gloriously
The exception was one who ha'
dropped at the first shot with
wound in his right shoulder. Well
after the others had fled, the girl cam
down from the box to look at tn
wounded man. She stopped over hin
and pulled off the mask, revealing t
her astonished eyes the features O
Wild Bill, her lover. No, she didn'
marry him. but she took him int
town, had his wound attended to, an,
never revealed to the authorize
what had occurred. That's a tru
story. Fort Worth CTeX.) Gazette.