USA > Idaho > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 43
USA > Montana > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 43
USA > Oregon > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 43
USA > Washington > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 43
USA > Wyoming > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 43
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The Stage Coach.
the coach, and then made their escape through the basaltic gateways to the fastnesses of the mountains. The driver, with his ghastly freight of dead and wounded, returned to the station. Large rewards were offered by the stage company for the arrest of the desperadoes who had com- mitted this frightful butchery, and for the recov- ery of the stolen treasure. Many members of the Vigilante organization of Montana started in pur- suit, but all attempts to trace the murderers were for some time abortive.
Frank Williams, the driver of the coach, soon after left the employ of the stage company, and was for some time a hanger-on of the saloons of Salt Lake City. The lavish use he made of money while there, excited the suspicion of those who were in pursuit of the robbers, and when he left the city, they followed him and watched him closely, until satisfied that he was using money in larger amounts than he could have obtained hon- estly. At Godfrey's Station, between Denver and Julesburg, they arrested him. Conscience-smitten, he fell upon his knees at the feet of his accusers, and made a full confession, implicating eleven confederates, whose names and places of abode he revealed. He admitted that he had driven the coach into the ambush for the purpose of aiding
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the robbery, in the avails of which he was a par- ticipant. It probably never occurred to him that the murder of the passengers was possible; and from the moment of its occurrence he had not known a moment's peace of mind or freedom from fear of arrest. He was hanged near Den- ver immediately after his arrest and confession. The information he gave enabled his captors to eventually secure the persons of several others engaged in the robbery, who were summarily ex- ecuted, - but the larger portion of the robbers are still at large.
There have been several coach robberies in Port-Neuf cañon and the vicinity since the one here recorded, but none in which life was taken. Indeed, attacks upon the downward bound coach became so frequent that for several years before the completion of the railroad the stage company provided for each treasure coach a guard, whose business it was to defend both treasure and pas- sengers by all means in his power. Among the men selected for this duty they made choice of two who had figured conspicuously in the early Vigilante history of Montana, John X. Beidler and John Fetherstun.
The only stage station in this cañon was known by the very appropriate name of "Robbers'
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Roost," and I never passed the place without a feeling of mingled sadness and horror at the rec- ollection of the tragedy which has given it such a bloody notoriety. Forty-six times have I passed through this canon on trips from Montana to the States and returning. It has been with me a life- long custom to take my seat with the driver, and occasionally when riding through the cañon, clad in a buffalo overcoat, with headgear to correspond, I have experienced an instinctive feeling of dis- comfort at the thought that I might be mistaken for a guard, who is always deemed the legitimate prey of the road agent, and shot down by some avenging Nemesis of the band. The robbers, however, seldom demand the money or other per- sonal effects of the driver or messenger, as these, being of small value, poorly compensate for the risk incurred in robbing the treasure-box and the passengers.
Among the various devices I had thought of adopting to escape robbery in case of attack, I finally concluded to act the part of a messenger, with whose methods long observation had made me familiar. The objection to this was that the robbers frequented incog. the stations on the route of their contemplated depredations, and knew the personnel of all or nearly all the mes-
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sengers. No mercy therefore would be shown to any one who was detected in the attempt to per- sonate one of them. The risk was too great to be ineurred except by one who courted adventure, or where the safety of a large amount was in- volved. An opportunity finally came.
My duties as bank examiner required a visit to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the latter part of June, 1878. Having completed my examinations, the cashier of the Second National Bank requested me on my return to convey to Denver a consider- able sum of gold and currency.
The coach robberies had been so numerous for nearly a year on this route, that Messrs. Barlow and Sanderson, the proprietors of the stage line and the express company, had refused to transport treasure over it, and all packages of merchandise were sent in charge of trusty messengers. I re- luctantly assented, they taking the risk of the safe conduet of the money, -the other risk, to me at least the greater of the two, my own safety, I had to take myself. I was the only passenger. No one else coveted a ride over the dismal route. The money was securely locked in my valise which was packed among the mail-bags inside the coach. On arriving at Las Vegas a change of drivers took place. Charley Fernandez, a half-blood
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Mexican whose acquaintance I had made years before while on the same trip, took the reins, and we continued on our way in excellent spirits. He was known by the sobriquet " Mexican Charley." He was an excellent whip, and noted for his cool- ness in danger, and kindness to his horses. At Eureka, Mr. Stewart, the stage company's black- smith, who had been shoeing the horses along the route, got into the coach. Fatigued with over- work, he re-arranged the mail-bags and spread his blankets, and, without my knowledge, removed my valise containing the money to the front boot of the coach. The first half of the night had worn away. Charley had told me a great num- ber of thrilling incidents about the stage travel, and the trouble with road agents along the road. The subject, though interesting, was not at the time and under the circumstances particularly in- spiring, especially as we were now passing through the infested portion of the route. I had con- trived to fall into a doze, and in that creepy mood so common to people whose condition is half-way between slumber and wakefulness, had so con-jumbled road agents and stage coaches, that but for a fortunate jolt now and then, I should probably have fallen into the unhappy consciousness that I was really a victim to rob-
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The Stage Coach.
bery and disaster. We were passing at a moder- ate pace a cluster of isolated hills, known in that region as " Wagon Mound Buttes." The horses had just begun with slackened gait to ascend a grade, when Charley roused me from my revery by a quick, short, half-breathless ejaculation, " What's that in the road ahead of us ?" Every sense I possessed was roused in an instant. The trust I had undertaken gave me infinite concern, and I confess to an alarm bordering upon fear. If I had left that money behind, I thought, I should have little trouble in taking care of myself. Peering into the darkness at that moment par- tially dispelled by the rising moon, I discovered, about fifty yards in front, two objects just disap- pearing among the bushes by the roadside.
"I guess," said Charley, re-assuringly, "it's nothing but burros."
" Quite likely, Charley," I replied. " We have seen them at intervals all the way."
" That's what it is, you may depend," rejoined Charley. " I've often mistook 'em before for the blasted road agents. But I was a leetle skeered at fust, warn't you ?"
" Considerably, Charley. I don't want to meet them this time, at any rate."
"No danger, I guess," said Charley, as he
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touched his leaders with the whip to urge them up the grade.
The horses pulled along at a quicker gait, and I was settling back into a state of tranquil som- nolence, happy in the thought that we were not probably the first men who had been frightened by a couple of jackasses, when suddenly, as if springing out of the solid earth, two men jumped from the bushes. They were about twenty feet apart. The one most distant, a short, rather slen- der person, seized the bits of the leaders with his left hand, holding in the right a cocked revolver. The other, a stalwart figure of six feet, with corresponding physical proportions, raised a double-barrelled shot-gun, and aiming it directly at my head, shouted in a fierce, impetuous tone, -
" Halt ! Don't either of you move a hand. I want that treasure-box." This startling saluta- tion, with its accompanying demonstration, for a moment filled me with apprehension, but the quick reply of Charley, "There's no treasure-box aboard," restored me to instant calmness. Now, thought I, is the time to put my chosen theory into practice.
" Don't say a word to them, Charley !" said I, in a suppressed tone. " Let me do the talking." The big robber, whose determination was more
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strongly whetted by Charley's reply to his first de- mand, now spoke in an angry tone, and with his gun in closer proximity to my head, exclaimed, - " I tell yon I want that treasure-box, and quick too. Throw it right down there," pointing to the ground alongside the forward wheel of the coach.
My rapid breathing had now so far abated that I was able to say in a steady, natural tone, -
" The driver has told you the truth. I have no treasure-box on this run. I don't know what the other boys have had. You fellows have run the road to suit yourselves this summer. I haven't had a treasure-box for more than two months."
" I know better than that," he replied, with the usual formula of oaths, " and if you don't throw out that box, I'll shoot the top of your head off," at the same time advancing two or three steps, and aiming his gun with both barrels cocked, less than a yard's distance from my head ; - by reaching forward I could have touched it.
The man was very nervous. I knew that his object was robbery without murder, rather than murder and robbery afterwards. In his excite- ment, which had been rapidly increasing in inten- sity, I feared that he might unintentionally pull the triggers on which his fingers were resting. To possibly avoid a fatal result in such case, I moved
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my head backward and forward, to the right and left, and tried to keep as much out of range as possible. All to no purpose : - the gun kept mo- tion with me, and held me constantly in range. I finally said to him, -
" Oblige me by holding your gun a little out of range with my head. You've got the drop on me, but I can't believe you wish to kill a man who is ready to give you all he has."
" You just give me that treasure-box, and you won't be hurt," he replied, in an obstinate tone, with his gun still in position.
The other robber, seemingly much amused at the fear I manifested for my safety, in a jocular manner shouted to me, in a voice peculiarly femi- nine, -
" Does them gun-barrels look pretty big ?"
I replied that I could not readily recall a time in my life when gun-barrels looked quite as large as they did at that moment, and that although neither the moon nor stars were very bright, yet I was quite sure I could read the advertisements on a page of the New York Herald which they had used for gun wadding.
This answer excited their mirth, and they laughed quite heartily, but it did not divert them from their purpose. After parleying with them a few
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minutes longer, I handed the big man the way- pocket containing the way-bill, and told him that the entire contents of the coach were entered on it, and he could satisfy himself that there was no treasure-box on board. They made the examina- tion and were convinced.
During this research they watched our move- ments closely, lest Charley or I should draw a weapon. Neither of us was armed. Returning the way-bill to the leather pocket, the big man in a surly tone inquired, -
" Got any passengers aboard ?"
" There is a man inside, but he is not a passen- ger," I replied.
" Who is he then, and what is he doing there, if he is not a passenger ? "
" He is the company's blacksmith."
Frenzied with the disappointment of not find- ing a treasure-box, and thinking that I was en- deavoring to screen a passenger by calling him an employe, the robber exclaimed, -
" That's played out. I want that man," and, rattling the coach door, in language redundant with profane superlatives, he ordered him, if he wished to escape being shot, to come out and show himself.
Stewart, who had slept through all the previous
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part of the colloquy, on being thus summarily summoned, comprehended the situation of affairs, and slipping a small roll of greenbacks into his shoe, stepped out of the coach.
" Throw up your hands," was the stern com- mand addressed to him emphasized by the double muzzle of a loaded gun within a few feet of his head. He was not slow to comply, nor to submit with the best possible grace to the search which followed, yielding only a single Mexican dollar.
The fury of the robber as he held this meagre trophy of his enterprise up to the pale moonlight was dramatic in the highest possible degree, and yet so associated with his earlier disappointments, that one could hardly restrain himself from burst- ing into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
" What business have you," he yelled, inter- larding his speech with an unlimited use of pro- fane and opprobrious epithets, " to be travelling through this country with no more money than that ? "
Stewart answered that he was the horse-shoer of the company, which paid his bills while on the road, and he therefore had no need of money while thus employed.
After a careful examination of Stewart's hands, which were found to be hard and callous, and the
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The Stage Coach.
discovery of a box containing the tools used in horse-shoeing, the robber was satisfied that he had told the truth, and returned the Mexican dollar. Baffled at all points, he hurled the way-pocket into the sage brush, and in a tone of mingled anger and disgust, exclaimed, -
" No passengers, no treasure-box, no nothing. This is a - of an outfit." With his gun still in point-blank range, he crept close beside the front wheel, and by the subdued light gazed scrutinizingly into my face for a brief space, as if to ascertain whether he had ever seen me before. He repeated this so often that I feared he would resolve the doubt he evidently entertained of my assumed office against me, and shoot me for the imposition. This to me was the most terrible moment of the encounter. I returned his stare each time with an impassive countenance, resolved at all hazards to persist in my experiment. While thus occupied, he directed his companion to ex- amine the contents of the rearward boot and overhaul the mail bags within the coach. Ten minutes later, the search proving abortive, he said in slow, measured tones, dropping back a few paces, -
" Well, I guess you'd better drive on."
Charley gathered up the reins, and was about
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giving the word to his horses, when it occurred to me that I might complete the deception I had all along practised by a little ruse which the occa- sion seemed to demand.
" Hold on, Charley," and turning to the dis- comfited man I added, -
" I want my way-pocket."
" You can't have it," was the prompt reply.
" But I must have it," I insisted. "I can't go on without it. The company will discharge a messenger who loses his way-pocket."
This reply seemed to allay his suspicions. He stepped into the sage brush and returned in a few minutes with the pocket, which he gave me, and ordered us quite peremptorily to drive on.
Charley needed no second invitation, but drove on quite briskly. After mutually congratulating each other on our escape, we naturally recounted the events of the evening, and among other things commented upon the feminine voice of the smaller of the robbers ; but I soon dismissed the subject, feeling too well satisfied with the success of an artifice which had saved the bank a considerable sum of money, and possibly both of us from a fatal calamity.
Several months after this adventure, while re- turning by stage from Leadville to Pueblo, the
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driver directed my attention to a grave marked by a low wooden slab on the plateau overlooking the Arkansas river a short distance below Buena Vista. Just beyond it was an abrupt ravine.
" I never pass that grave," said the driver, " without being reminded of the event connected with it. A few weeks ago a band of horses had been stolen from a ranche on the road between Trinidad and Wagon Mound Buttes, by two horse thieves who were pursued by the owners over the range into the Arkansas valley. They were overtaken with the stolen herd in that ravine. On attempting to enter it the smaller thief com- manded the pursuing party to halt, disregarding which, he fired upon and wounded two of them. Roused by the firing, the other thief appeared, and a pitched battle ensued, in which he was slain outright, and the other fatally wounded. Surgi- cal aid was obtained, and the surviving thief was found to be a woman. She died in a few days thereafter, refusing to the last to reveal her his- tory, or furnish any clew by which it might be traced." This event occurring so soon after the attempt to rob the coach, convinced the people thereabouts of the identity of the persons en- gaged in both outrages.
Many of the " home stations" on the stage
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lines where meals were served, were favorite camp- ing-grounds for freighters engaged in the trans- portation of merchandise from the railroad to the interior towns. On the road between Kelton · and Boise, the station at Rock Creek, one hundred miles distant from the railroad, was kept by Charles Trotter. It was one of the few stopping-
places where palatable meals were served.
Its
reputation in this respect won for it a widespread popularity with the travelling public, and in pro- cess of time a small settlement sprung up around it. A store was opened, where emigrants and others could obtain provisions, clothing, and such other necessaries as they needed. Naturally enough, many of the new-comers were rough in their tastes, fond of gambling, drinking, and the athletic sports common in an unorganized community. The influence exercised by a few citizens of the better class was all that saved the little settlement from lapsing into lawlessness and crime.
My diary for 1877 shows that on September 17th I passed through Rock Creek by stage en route for Boise. Our coach entered the place about the middle of the afternoon. An English- man who had arrived in America a fortnight before, was the only passenger besides myself. It
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The Stage Coach.
was his first journey in a stage coach, and the rough and desolate region through which it lay presented to his mind many features of novelty and interest, mingled with no little disquietude at the strange character of his surroundings. He was in a condition to be alarmed at anything.
As we alighted from the coach, our attention was directed by loud hilarious singing to a com- pany of twenty or more men approaching the station, bearing in their midst a long pine box. I perceived at once that it was a funeral orgie over the burial of some wretch who had paid the penalty of a summary death for a life of crime. A person standing near me replied to my inquiry as to the cause. He said that about two years previous to this time, a stranger came one morn- ing to the station and asked for breakfast. He was hungry and moneyless. Mr. Trotter gave him a breakfast and he left ; but something about his actions and appearance aroused Trotter's sus- picions, and, concealed by the sage brush, he tracked him for some distance across the plain, and came up with him as he was in the act of mounting a horse which Trotter recognized as the property of a friend in Boise. Believing that the horse had been stolen, Trotter arrested the man, who gave his name as William Dowdle, sent
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him to Boise, where he was tried for the theft, convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment two years in the Idaho Penitentiary. Dowdle avowed that if he lived to be free, he would kill Trotter. At the close of his term he obtained employment as cook for a freighter named Johnson, and slowly wended his way to Rock Creek, where his employer and party camped for a day to replen- ish their stock of provisions.
The next morning, armed with a revolver, Dow- dle went to the station to execute his threat, and was greatly chagrined to learn that Trotter was confined to his bed with typhoid fever. He sought to alleviate his disappointment in liquor, which maddened him to that degree that he threatened the lives of several persons, and, seat- ing himself beside the road, fired indiscriminately at all who passed him. One shot hit a Mr. Spen- cer, a blacksmith, who was passing quietly along, inflicting what was supposed to be a mortal wound. Attracted by the reports of the pistol, young Wohlgamuth, a relative of Trotter who had charge of the store, hurried to the doorway, when a bullet from Dowdle's pistol penetrated the door-casing, just grazing his head. He imme- diately grasped his revolver from a shelf hard by, and shot Dowdle through the heart. The villain
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The Stage Coach.
fell prostrate in the road, exclaiming, "Such is life, boys, in the days of forty-nine," and died instantly. The entire settlement manifested their approval of Wohlgamuth's timely shot by a sea- son of general rejoicing, and a coroner's jury exonerated him from all blame.
The funeral followed speedily. A rude coffin of pine, with four handles of cords knotted into the sides, was the single preparation. In this the body, incased in Johnson's overcoat, was laid, fully exposed, the cover of the box being laid aside until the conclusion of the ceremonies. Four strong men grasped the handles, and lifting the coffin, the procession formed about equally in front and rear of them, and the march com- menced. Frequent potations had exhilarated the entire company to such a degree that no attempt was made to preserve regularity of motion or direction. The line of march was between a ridge on the south and one on the north side of the station, about a mile apart. No clergyman was present to conduct the exercises, and no layman was in a condition to offer a prayer or read the scriptures. The exigency could only be supplied by vocal music ; and in the absence of hymn books it was thought to be exceedingly proper and befitting the occasion for all to join in an old
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California refrain entitled, " The Days of Forty- Nine." Indeed, the last words of Dowdle seemed to convey a request for it. The song was a dog- gerel composed in the early Pacific mining days in commemoration of "Lame Jesse," a kindred spirit to Dowdle. The mourners on this occasion substituted for the name of " Lame Jesse " that of "Dowdle Bill." This musical service was progressing as our coach drove up to the station. The song consisted of a score or more of verses of which I can recall the following only : -
" Old Dowdle Bill was a hard old case; He never would repent. He never was known to miss a meal, - He never paid a cent.
"Old Dowdle Bill, like all the rest, He did to Death resign ; And in his bloom went up the flume, In the days of Forty-Nine."
Mrs. Trotter informed me that this procession of men bearing the coffin, had marched to and fro between the two ridges in a state of drunken revelry for a period of five hours ; some singing one, some another verse, producing an utter con- fusion of sound, and so excited as to be utterly unable to preserve a straight line. At one of their halts near the coach, Johnson, who was at
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the moment one of the bearers, discovered that his own overcoat covered the body.
"- if they haven't laid him out in my blue overcoat !" he exclaimed, and loosening his hold of the handle, he raised the body, removed the coat, and put it on his own back. The march was then resumed, and amid singing, shouts, and laughter, the body was borne to a low ridge and buried.
Supper being soon announced, my English fel- low-traveller did not appear at the table. He was perfectly appalled at the scene he had witnessed.
" Is this," he inquired, with much earnestness, " the usual way funerals are conducted in this wild country ? We never have such proceedings in England, you know. If the better class of people do such things, the country must be pretty rough. I didn't know but they'd take me next, and I hadn't any appetite."
I assured him that our lives were perfectly safe ; but it was not until we reached the next eating station, that hunger seemed to conquer his fears, and he was fully re-assured.
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Retrospection.
CHAPTER XXVI.
RETROSPECTION.
IN the former chapters of this history, we have seen that the people of Montana did not adopt the Vigilante code until a crisis had arrived when the question of supremacy between them and an organized band of robbers and murderers could be decided only by a trial of strength. When that time came, the prompt and decisive measures adopted by the Vigilantes brought peace and security to the people. If any of the murderous band of marauders remained in the Territory, fear of punishment kept them quiet. Occasion- ally indeed a man would be murdered in some of the desolate cañons while returning to the States, but whenever this occurred the offenders were generally hunted down and summarily executed. . When the executive and judicial officers ap- pointed by the government, arrived in the Terri- tory in the autumn of 1864, they found the mining camps in the enjoyment of a repose which was broken only by the varied recreations which
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