The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1918-01-05
Lost and Found
By ALAN HINsD
lcopyrisht. 1917. Western Newspaper Union.j

49, OO
the first place, the woolly west doesn't
exist any more, and, in the second
place, passengers worth robbing usual
ly travel by rail.
I am an old man now, but l had per-
sonal experience in one Of those old
fashioned stage holdups. 1 went west
when 1 was about twenty years old
and dug and dug and dug for five
years. I never made a strike, but In
one way or another I accumulated q
little money. A girl vas waiting for
me In the east-indeed, she had been
waiting for me for the five years I had
been in the west. My pile was big
enough to set me up In q small way
In an eastern town, and I concluded
to go home, get married and settle
down to a regular business.
There were not the facilities for
sending money from the far west In
those days there are now, and l was
In a ~quandary how to transport my
little fortune. 1 finally decided to
have 1t melted down into a small brick
and carry it with me. In the mold l
had my initials inserted so that the
brick showed the impression. / car
ried 1t in my breeches pocket where l
could easily get my hand on 1t.
Well, 1 started out with my fortune.
travelling with a coach full Of passen-
gers. There was a road agent-that's
what they called stage robbers In those
days-known as Simmons, who was
terrifying the country at that time,
and there was no knowing but that he
would hold up our coach. he did, and
he got my gold brick. My heart sank
at seeing 1t go, but I couldn't help my
self. After he had got all We had he
let us go on.
When I got to the end Of the stage
line I concluded to turn around and 60
back. There was no use going home
as poor as when I left five years be-
fore. I couldn't marry my girl, and
without her I preferred to remain in
the west.
When I was about to enter the coach
the next morning they weren't going
to let me in, but when I told them how
I had lost my five years profit and
had to begin all over again where I
had first started they gave me a seat.
The passengers consisted OF a parson, a
big, coarse looking woman and a little
red headed Teller who looked very
nervous.
We talked over coach robberies on the
way. It didn't make any difference to
me whether we were robbed or not
considering that I hadn't anything to
lose. I reckoned the little red headed
Teller had a good deal to lose, he was
so timid about it. The parson talked
the doctrine Of nonresistance, and I
concluded he was a Yankee. The big,
coarse woman said she had a revolver
where she could get at it easy and II
IN man got anything out Of her he'd
get some lead first.
True enough there was another Die
up.
Whether Simmons did it or not ]
| couldn't tell. The man who did the job
was masked-I mean the man who
opened the coach door and told us to
tumble out, for there were two others
in the gang, one to cover the driver and
another to watch the road for an In
terruptiOn.
The first one to get out was the wo-
man. She stood behind the robber, but
she didn't shoot him in the back. She
was covered by n Of the other rob-
bers. The parson got out next and
nonresisted. The little red headed fell
Ter and I remained inside. The robber
told him to come along, but he cringed
back in a corner, begging piteously for
his life. The robber reached forward
and caught hold Of him to drag him
out.
I heard two shots and saw the rob
/ Der fall dead. He vas killed by the
nonresistant parson. The other shot
came from the big woman, who saw
an opportunity to take the man who
was watching her. There was a third
shot a few seconds after the other two,
fired by the little red headed Teller
that had just been yanked out OF the
coach. He felled the man who wa
lookin' out for interruptions.
The big woman pounced on the fallen
man who had taken us out Of the
coach and pulled off his mask.
"We've got him." she said. "Its
Andy Simmons"
Then I understood that I'd been trav'
cling with a party made up for the puS-
pose of Kidding the country of the des.
perado. The woman was a man, and
the narsOn was h sheriff of the cOun.
ty. The red headed Teller was one Of
the gang. / was the only n in the
coach who wasn't.
The robbers, one of whom was killed
and the other two badly wounded. had
on them the plumber of the coach that
had been robbed the day before.
Among other valuables I was delighted
to see my nugget. Luckily I had told
the story Of its loss, and my initials on