Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1883 — HOW FRANCES ROBBED THE STAGE. [ARTICLE]

HOW FRANCES ROBBED THE STAGE.

The four-horse mud wagon, called bycommon consent a stage, which ran between Bokey’s and Logtown, was crawling up the long grade which corkscrewed around to the summit of Pilot Knob. It was necessary to do this in order that a good preparatory start might be bad for the succeeding rattling plunge down the other cork-screw road which led to Logtown. By the side of Black Pete, the driver, sat an eastern importation of the genus “drummer”. JPete rolled his tobacco into his cheek, snapped a fly off the ear of his nigh leader and said: “No, sir, I don’t git no pay fer fightin’ an’ I don’t do no fightin’ fer ther company. If ary galoot stops this hyer stage and perlitely like asks fer the cash box, he’s a gwine ter git it. ’Taint no use, no ways, to fight them fellers, they always hev ther drap on ye. ” “But,” said the drummer, “were you ever robbed on this route ?” “Wai, no, but I’ve seed fellers a loafin’ round heer ez I thought mought do it some time er other” “And if they didstop yon, you would give them the express box and drive on, eh?” “Yer bet! If ther express company wants to perfect ther box, they must send a messenger along. ” The stage crawled up slowly to the top of the hill, and Black Pete settled his foot firmly in the brake-strap, and with a “scat ’em boys” the sweating horses started to investigate the mysteries of the almost invisible road below them on a keen gallop. , . Bound and round the rapidly-varying road the stage and its passengers whirled, sometimes losing sight of the horses around the sharp turns and again slewing sharply outward toward the dangerous edge of the deep canon which yawned below them. The sun was down, and the moon was painting weird and restless shadows on the powdered dust of the grade. It was just the time for the imagination to picture scenes of violence, robbery and blood. Suddenly the chaparral bushes by the roadside slightly, parted, and a long shining black object was waved over them toward the stage. A shadowy figure rose in the moonlight among the bushes and from behind a black veil, which smothered the voice somewhat, came the hoarse command of “Stop, stop!” Black Pete hurriedly pushed his foot heavily down upon the brake, reached down into the boot of the stage, pulled out the express box, and muttering, “Cuss yer, take it,” threw the box into the road. • The restless horses immediately plunged away into the shades of the forest. “ Wa-was that a highwayman ?” gasped the drummer. “In coarse it was,” answered Pete, “didn’t yer see ther shootin’ iron? Thar goes a cool thousand dollars, as I knows on. Yer bet ther boys ’ll be out arter him to-night. I shouldn’t wonder if that wax - old Bart himself. He’s a cool one, he is. He always shoots his mouth oft in some potry. Leaves it in the box when he gets through with it. Didn’t yer notice how level he held that thar sheotin’ iron right terwards me ?” The lights of Logtown now glistened below them, and a few turns of the corkscrew brought the stage up to the hotel porch, where it stopped with a loud “whoa!” from Black Pete. Not many minutes elapsed before the prophecy of Pete was realized, for as soon as the story of the bold robbery of Wells Fargo’s box was related a dozen or so ready miners volunteered to search the woods for the road agent. After half an hour’s swearing and drinking over the matter they saddled their horses and started for the scene of the robbery. * ♦ ♦ * * It was a little, cramped-up, helterskeltered mining town among the Sierras. One need not rise early in Scar’s Hole to see the sun rise, for he will not see it if he does. Old Sol is never visible there until 10 in the morning. The rough, picturesque cabins, looking for all the world like dilapidated dice thrown at random from the box, are built deep down in a hole between the surrounding peaks. And yet they actually had a telephone connecting them with the outside world. The denizens of Scar’s Hole were not given to an indulgence in business Communications with the great commercial centers, but their telephone was the means of .preventing many of the inhabitants from spending the remainder of their earthly days at the insane asylum. Every evening, when the echo of the booming blasts and the thud of the pick had ceased in the half-dozen fniniug claims surrounding the camp, the wearied, lonely miners gathered at the little cabin in which was placed the telephone, and gave vent‘to their pentup feelings by, not a free fight, but a free interchange of gossip with the residents of the camps above and below them on the line of the wire. Such was their inborn detestation of any man who followed any pursuit which did not require actual labor with his hands, and such was their chivalric devotion of the fair sex, that the management of their part of the telephone was given to a young lady by the name of Frances Goldsmith. On the afternoon of June 20, 1880, Miss Frank, as she was usually called, sat in the little telephone office waiting for the nightly crowd of manly gossipers to come in. 'The little rocking-chair in which she sat went bumping to and fro noisily and nervously on the pine floor, and the tiny slippered foot beat a nervous tattoo in unison with it. , “Its too bad,” she cried impetuously, “it’s too bad for Charlie to work down in that old hole in the ground all winter and then sell out for a paltry thousand. And he’s doing it just so that we can be married this summer,

and a pretty little wave of blood swept over the sweet neck and face. “He shan’t do it. Charlie don’t know anything about a mine and he may have a little bonanza and not know it, just hear the dear simpleton.” Logtows, Cal, My Pbbcioub Frank: Bonn is negotiating with me for my claim, and he offers >I,OOO cash. I have not yet accepted it, but I have about made made up my mind that I had better do so. You know if I had that much cash, I could have the face to ask you hasten that S' iped-for happy day. lor your sake, ,1 believe it will behest for me to take er. If I do, you may look for me down early next week, Yours forever, Charles Motley. “Hello, Frank,"shouted a smothered voice close to her ear, “are you there yet?” Frances jumped to her feet and ran to the telephone. “Dear me, I left the receiver hanging down, and they could not ring the bell.” She put it to her ear and shouted back through the transmitter: “Yes, I’m here; what is it?” “Don’t you forget to send that thousand up on the stage to-night t<s Logtown. Tom says there’s at least SIO,OOO in sight. Motley is a school marm and don’t know.it. Don’t forget, now. Goodbye!” Frank’s pretty eyes and mouth spread wider and wider as these words came out of the wonderful little instrument. “Forgoodness sake! whois he talking to? Oh-h-h y-e-es! why it must be to Frank Downey, the express agent at Bokey. They’ve been talking together, and Downey has stopped and switched my end on. Motley is a school maim, is he? There’s 10,000 in sight and Charley don’t know it, and the money is going up there on the stage from Bokey to-night. Oh dear, what shall I do? I’ll go up there. I will. It’s only eight miles, and it’s twenty from Bokey. It’s 5 o’clock, and the stage gets there at 9.” Frank was a California girl, and there were no perils for her on the eight-mile trail to Logtown, and if there had been, the slur cast upon Charley’s keenness, and the eager desire to” save that “10,000 in sight” for him would have been sufficient incentives to induce her to dare them, though she knew they awaited her. Running over to the postoffice, she hurredly engaged the young clerk to take care of the instrument for her, and, dashing back to her room, she soon appeared ready for her eight - mile walk to , Logtown. A little silk cap surmounted her head and over it was stretched a black veil to protect her face from the sun and from the evening breeze after dark. Spreading her jaunty parasol she threaded her way along the narrow trail which led through the chaparral into the dark woods. The sun was yet very hot, although almost down behind the hills, and the trail was steep and rocky, but Frank pushed on, muttering to herself, when she felt so tired that she was tempted to sit down and rest, “Charley’s a school marm is he? Ten thousand dollars in sight and he don’t know it, eh? Well he shall know it, and have all the <y.-edit of the discovery too, there now!” Up, up, down, down, around and around wound the mountain trail, and Frank wound with it, until tired, dusty,breathless, hoarse, and almost crying, she saw the county highway in tile somber moonlight, just below her. Just as she reached the roadside and was about to push through the chaparral .which here reached to her shoulders she heard the rumbling old stagecoach coming around a bend close to her. With a despairing resolve to go in at least with the stage if she could not before it, she pushed her closed parasol through the bushes and waved it to the driver, shouting at the same time, hoarse from her excitement “JStop I Stop!” But, to her astonishment and dismay, instead of stopping, the driver reached down into the boot, and, with a “cuss yer, take it!” threw a heavy box into the road, and, lashing his four-in-hand into a run, disappeared down the canon.

Poor Frank crouched down into the chaparral in despair. “Oh, dear! I haven’t walked there and I’ve lost the stage and poor Charley —oh, dear me!” ~ The spirit of a genuine California girl isjiot easily overcome with despair, and Frank was a genuine California girl and she was not to be beaten until she was. She got up, pulled her black veil tighter over her moist face and bravely started on again toward Longtown. It was not far and not a half hour elapsed before she saw the lights of the little camp scattered around in the canyon below her. Breathless and panting, she hurried to the tavern. A great crowd of men were excitedly swearing and threatening on the porch. Some were in the street cinching saddles on to their horses, and in their midst stood Black Pete, the stage-driver. “Don’t I know,” he was angrily shouting, “I tell yer twar only a mile back, an’ ther cuss shoved his shootin’ iron right under my nose! Why didn’t I run fer it ? Thar war two uv ’em thar as sure as fightin’. ” Pretty soon, with a yell and a whoop, twenty men galloped up the road with a suggestive-looking rope dangling from one of the saddles. Poor Frank hastened to find Charley. She found him sitting disconsolately on the back porch. “Why, Frank, what in the world are you doing up here?” “Oh, Charley, have you sold that mine yet ? Am I too late ?” “Too late for what? Sold it? No, and don’t believe I can. That man Bonn sent his money up by express and a road agent got away with the stage to-night, and the money went with it. I don’t believe he’ll risk another thousand on a played-out mine.” “Oh goodie!” cried Frank, “I’ve got here in time. Road agent? Oh, that is too rich. Oh dear, oh dear, I shall die”—and Frank’s voice ended in a high squeak of laughter. “Frank, Frank! what is the matter? What do you know about the road agent ?” Frank was holding to her sides in despair of stopping her irrepressible laugh. “Road agent? There wasn’t any road agent at all; I stopped the stage to get on, and the driver threw a b-o-x at m-e-el” “What does this mean, Frank? Tell me. What were you doing on the road at this time of night, all alone?” . It took her a long time to get the story out, but she did, while Charley stood with his mouth open wide enough to represent his played-out claim with “SIO,OOO in sight.” No sooner had Frank told her story than Up caught her i» his arms, ftn4

with a wild shout, “You little darling, you shall have every cent of it.” About two hours afterward a file of disconsolate, disgusted horsemen wended their way up to the tavern, with a “suggestive rope dangling from one of the saddles” and a box containing SI,OOO. It is sufficient to relate that Charley did not sell his SIO,OOO in sight, but on the contrary received a much larger sum, sufficient, in fact, to make him a happier man financially and matrimonially. When enough of the story was told in the bar-room to account for the stopping of the stage, Black Pete had to provide for a smile all round, with a continuendo.— Los Angelos Recreation..