Forty-one Thieves | Page 2

job as mender of ditches, was making a dash for San Francisco, with five hundred dollars in dust and a pistol at his belt. The other passengers were Dr. John Mason and Mamie Slocum, teacher. Mamie, rosy-cheeked, dark-eyed, and pretty, was only seventeen, and ought to have been at home with her mother. She was a romantic girl, however, with several beaux in Eureka Township; and now that the summer session of school was over, she was going home to Nevada City, where there were other conquests to be made.
Dr. Mason, a tall, lean Scotchman, lived at North Bloomfield, only nine miles distant, whence he had been summoned to attend a case of delirium tremens. The sparkling water of the Sierras is pure and cold, but the gold of the Sierras buys stronger drink. With a fee of two double eagles in his pocket, the doctor could look with charity upon the foibles of human nature. He thoroughly enjoyed the early morning ride among the giant pines. In the open places manzanita ran riot, its waxy green leaves contrasting with the dust-laden asters and coarse grasses by the roadside. Across the ca?on of the Middle Yuba the yellow earth of old man Palmer's diggings shone like a trademark in the landscape, proclaiming to the least initiated the leading industry of Sierra and Nevada Counties, and marking for the geologist the height of the ancient river beds, twenty-five hundred feet above the Middle Yuba and nearly at right angles to it. Those ancient river beds were strewn with gold. Looking in the other direction, one caught glimpses here and there of the back-bone of the Sierras, jagged dolomites rising ten thousand feet skyward. The morning air was stimulating, for at night the thermometer drops to the forties even in midsummer. In a ditch by the roadside, and swift as a mill-race, flowed a stream of clear cold water, brought for miles from reservoirs up in the mountains.
Even Charley Chu, now that he was leaving the gold fields forever, regarded the water-ditch with affection. It brought life--sparkling, abundant life--to these arid hill-tops. Years ago, Charley Chu and numerous other Chinamen had dug this very ditch. What would California have been without Chinese labor? Industrious Chinamen built the railroad over the Sierras to the East and civilization. Doctor, girl and Chinaman were too much occupied with their own thoughts to take much notice of the stage-driver, who, though he assumed an air of carelessness, was, in reality, on the watch for spies and robbers. For the bankers at Moore's Flat, a few miles further on, were planning to smuggle several thousand dollars' worth of gold dust to Nevada City that morning. Mat Bailey was a brave fellow, but he preferred the old days of armed guards and hard fighting to these dubious days when stage-drivers went unarmed to avoid the suspicion of carrying treasure. Charley Chu with his pistol had the right idea; and yet that very pistol might queer things to-day.
Over this road for twenty-five years treasure to the amount of many millions of dollars had been carried out of the mountains; and Mat could have told you many thrilling tales of highwaymen. A short distance beyond Moore's Flat was Bloody Run, a rendezvous of Mexican bandits, back in the fifties. Not many years since, in the ca?on of the South Yuba, Steve Venard, with his repeating rifle, had surprised and killed three men who had robbed the Wells Fargo Express. Some people hinted that when Steve hunted up the thieves and shot them in one, two, three order, he simply betrayed his own confederates. But the express company gave him a handsome rifle and a generous share of the gold recovered; I prefer to believe that Steve was an honest man.
The stage arrived at Moore's Flat, and Mat Bailey hurriedly transferred baggage and passengers to the gaily painted and picturesque stage-coach which, drawn by four strong horses, was to continue the journey. A pair of horses and a mountain wagon had handled the traffic to that point; but at the present time, when Moore's Flat can boast but eleven inhabitants, the transfer to the stage-coach is made at North Bloomfield, several miles further on. But in 1879, Moore's Flat, Eureka Township, was a thriving place, employing hundreds of miners. The great sluices, blasted deep into solid rock, then ran with the wash from high walls of dirt and gravel played upon by streams of water in the process known as hydraulic mining. Jack Vizzard, the watchman, threaded those sluiceways armed with a shot-gun.
At Moore's Flat, six men and two women boarded the stage; and Mat Bailey took in charge a small leather valise, smuggled out of the back door of the bank and handed to him carelessly. Mat received it without