Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1875 — An Adventure With a Stage-Robber. [ARTICLE]

An Adventure With a Stage-Robber.

Three San Franciscans —Messrs. W. AYon Schmidt and son and Robert J. Tiffany—were the heroes of a rather toman- i tic adventure in the mountains the, other i day. The time was two o’clock Monday j afternoon, the place eighteen miles he- j yond Orcville, at a locality famous, or j rather infamous, for stage-robberies and i lawlessness generally. The gentlemen ! named, in company with fire others, were i proceeding by the Quincy stage toward Oroville, and in course of conversation i Von Schmidt said he had a presentiment ! they would be stopped by a road-agent be- , fore reaching town. He had hardly got through with his uncomfortable remarks when they heard the word “ Stop!” accompanied by the click of a gun-lock. “Whoa!” said the driver, as he brought his horses to their haunches, and then the eipostulation: “ I can’t well stop here” —the stage was slipping "back. “Go on to the rise of the hill.” “ Hold your jaw,” said the first voice, “ and throw off that ! treasure-box, quick!” “ There’s the rob- | ber,” said Von; “I told you we’d meet him.” And a little Spanish woman on ! the front seat cried out: “ Misericordia, ladrones!” and fell in a dead faint'among the straw. Tiffany looked out of the side of the mud-wagon and saw an individual —a pitiful-looking chap, dressed in tattered canvas clothes, with his head incased in a piece of blanket that served the purpose of a mask—covering the driver and two trembling passengers who occupied the boot with a double-barreled shot-gun. “Is that a robber?” said lie; “ why, he’s not ar formidable-looking scoundrel.” It was Tiffany's first experience in road-agents, and he thought to see a Claude Duval or a Paul Clifford on a black horse. Meanwhile Von Schmidt had dropped from the rear of the stage, with a trusty large-sized Colt navy revolver in his hand, and drew a bead on the highwayman. Finding it necessanr fofiefend himself from this unexpected attack, the latter withdrew' liis attention from the driver and covered Von. The driver whipped up his horses and was off' like a shot, leaving Von and the robber to fight it out alone. The stage | drew up about a quarter of a mile from ! the place, when Mr. Tiffany and Mr. Von i Schmidt’s son both jumped out and hastened back to the assistance of the gallant engineer. The latter was armed with a bowie-knife and Mr. Tiffany depended on a fence rail. They had not returned many steps before they met Von coming along with his pistol still in his grasp and keeping a bright lookout for the probable companions of the blanketed thief. “ Where’s the robber?” was the anxious question. “Gone!” was Von’s calm reply; “in full retreat up the canon.” On reaching the stage the Colonel addressed some remarks to the stage-driver, more forcible than polite, for running off and leaving him in the manner he did. “ I would have had ] that fellow in Oroville to-night,” he said, | “if you’d only held your horses.” Bpt ' perhaps it was better for all sides that the shooting was so slow. The treasure-box that contained SIO,OOO was saved and no blood spilled. The Colonel and his party were heroes in Oroville on their arrival, and a special dispatch of thanks was received from Wells-Fargo’s office in this city. The company offer a reward of SSOO for the arrest and conviction of the would-be robber. — San Francisco Chronicle.