The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-08-23

commanded him to Search the others. The result was the discovery of about a thousand dollars more. and from that day on Gentleman Joe refused to take any mans word, After the sec ond robbery he wes 80 vigorously pur- sued that he had tu abandon the Silver City route. but in the course of cou- pie of weeks he was heard of up in the Humboldt valley. His advent was characterized by a feat which has no peer in stage robbing. He caught the up stage and the down stage just as they were about to pass each other at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. One had five men and a woman and the other four men. woman and boy. With the drivers there were eleven and all we'll armed. and yet ho appeared so sudden ly and moved about so quickly that 1t was at first supposed there were four or Ave robbers in the attack. The driv- CTS he paid no attention to. but he lined up the nine passengers. searched the first. and made him go through the others. It was said that his haul amounted to 5000. and as 1t was all in gold coin he had 1t lying on blanket in the road when the passengers reem- parked and the stage rolled away.
 By never interfering with the mails or express matter Gentleman Joe es- caped many official enemies. Neither Uncle sam nor the express officials were much concerned about hunting down man who did not interfere with their property. and such pursuit as was made by sheriffs ended in smoke. In one year the robber held up thirteen different stages and made gross haul of at least so0oo0. He was never known to enter town. and probably lived alone in the thickets and moun- tains. He had good horse and two reVolvers, and occasionally appeared at a mill or country store to make pur- chases of provisions At the end of q year the rewards offered for him amounted to s7.o00, His last ho,d-up had been on the Tuba river, in Cali ior1ia. ana seven men set out to cap ture nm. They hired q regular coach. dressed one of their number as a driv- CT. ana hid another In the boot. and all were of course armed to the teeth. It may be that Joe got word in some way or what was up. for hc caught the coach III rocky pass. shot the driver of his seat, and wounded two men rid ing within before the crowd was really aware of his presence. When he com manded the reward seekers to get down they lost no time in tumbling out. He sent the four unwounded men back up the road. stripped of everything. spent half an hour in making the wounded comfortable as possible, and then drove the stage into the mountains and turned the horses loose. Only one of them was ever recovered, while the outfit of firearms was proba bly, thrown into some ravine None of the wound cd died, but no one in that crowd ever took uo Joe's trail again.
 The genteel robbcr had an extended reputation in the course of year and a half. He had killed no one, and had been so courteous to all that men he had robbed of thousand dollars rath- CT admired him. and refused to contrih- ute to any pursuit. Eighteen months after his first robbery I met him for the last time. He had worked down toward Marysville and one evening he stopped my stage again. There were four men beside the driver and two children. We had canvassed the prob abilities of meeting him or some other lagent and decided to attempt no de- fence. I was the first one down, and the moonlight enabled me to recognize him. At the same instant he called out
 | Why, Mir. Blank, but have I got to hold you up a second time?"
 Flows business?' asked as took the head of the line.
 "Oh, I can't complain" he replied, but it might be more rushing
 He took four hundred dollars from me this time and asked me to search the others. I refused, and he laughed and commanded one of the others. He got, as we figured it up. $1,740 from us; and after talking awhile with the chill dren, he presented them $50 piece and shook hands with both A month later he was captured and sent to the Cali fornia state prison for long term of years. When his sentence expired he was tried for shooting and Wounding some one and got new sentence. He was then too old to expect to regain his liberty. Up to six months ago he toiled as a convict old and bent and gray. and then death claimed him. First and last fifty different men tried to ascertain where he had cached the result of his robberes. but he died without revealing the secret. Some where on the California slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains he hid away from s25.o0O to $3o,0oo in gold coin, but of the hundreds of men who have "prospected" for it no one has been lucky enough to come across the plant. ! .----