Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1884 — STAND-AND-DELIVER STORIES. [ARTICLE]

STAND-AND-DELIVER STORIES.

The Confession oJ m Staje-Hobber Who Thinks the Average Passenger a Nobody. : rry=- — [Reno Letter in the San Franclco Chronicle.] “Talking about brave men,” StageRobber Marshall said, one night in jail, “the idea that it takes a man of great nerve and daring to rob a stage is a great mistake. The trouble with the people of this country is, they rather like to be robbed, I guess. It’s easierin falling off a log. Why, a year ago last winter my pard and I was walking along the mountain road, not thinking of anything in particular, when along came a couple of tenderfeet in a carriage. Before we could catch our breath one of them threw up both hands, knocking the otherihat off, and hollered, ‘For God’s sakwdon’t shoot.’ •Well, now, we hadn’t any idea of shooting at all, and didn’t know these fellers were in those parts, but when they sort of reminded us of our business by commencing to unbuckle their watches and weasels, why, we just took them in charge of course, and told the tenderfeet never to let us catch them on that road again, for it wasn’t our’n. They thanked us so warmly for sparing thenlives that I felt a little uneasy about it. In fact I Was half tempted after we’d let them go to foller them .up and kill one or both of them, for somehow they gave me the impression that I hadn’t done my full duty. ” He smiled grimly for a moment, and added: “Now, whaton earth could I do under such circumstances ? I didn’t rob those fellers. They made us presents of what they had. Yet, when they got to Wadsworth, they told the people that they had an all-day hght witEyoa3 agent£l “I and my pard have robbed the Sierra Valley stage three times now at the same place. I’ll tell you how it was done. Pard had a Winchester and I had a pair of Colts in my belt; but the job was done every time with an pistol that had no load in it, and wouldn’t have gone *off if there had been one, for I didn’t haVe any caps. Pard would fire his Winchester as close to the ears of the horses as he could without them and I would swing the old blunderbuss in the air and holler. Every time it happened just the same. There was only just my pard and I, but the passengers would think they could see some of our men behind every tree. “One feller fainted dead away once. We’d just got them in a row good when this fellow’s knees commenced to knocks together, and he Kept geting out of line. I finally thought I’d scare him and the rest of them a little, so I hollered, pretending to give orders to the boys hidden behind rocks and trees. “ ‘ Boys, bore a hole in this gentleman with the light overcoat on if he moves an inch, or any of the rest of them.’ “Just then a big feller, the second one from the limber-legged chap, had chill like, and his teeth came together with such a noise that the other feller thought somebody was cocking a rifle, and, with a wild wlioop, he dropped in a dead faint. The rest of them thought he had been shot dead. They were too scared to notice that there had been no report of a gun. “Speaking about weapons, why, I have robbed stages up in California and over, in Utah without any weapons at all. You don’t need any. I’ll bet a tenner that I can take an old-fashioned tin candlestick and hold „up the best stage load that ever came over the mountains. ”