Overland Stage Tales of Nevada by William Daugherty

Tales of the Overland Stage - Page 5

A Lone Highwayman - "Throw up your hands," were the words that greeted a horseman as he turned a sharp curve on the upper grade leading into Austin, in the Spring of 1865. "Hand out your purse" was the next command, and he handed it out to the lone highwayman who had him covered with a villainous looking revolver. The highwayman was not masked, was perfectly cool and seemed in no hurry. Opening the purse, which contained a fair supply of bills, he took out one dollar, and handing the purse and its contents back to the traveler, said "Move on." The traveler did so without delay and wondered if that was the man who kept the toll-gate. A few minutes' ride took him into Austin and after stabling his horse he went into Marioni's Rotisserie and ordered his breakfast. While waiting for it and reading the paper, he was aware of someone taking a seat opposite to him, and when breakfast was served he laid aside the paper and began eating.

Looking up, his surprise was quite pronounced, to discover in his view, the lone highwayman, just commencing his breakfast also. Neither one spoke, and each one leisurely finished his breakfast, and stepped to the counter about the same time to settle. The highwayman laid down in payment the same dollar that he had extracted from the other’s purse on the grade. The meal was seventy-five cents, and for the change he took a cigar, lit it and stepped out on the sidewalk.

Highwayman

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The traveler, surprised at his coolness, accosted him and said "Excuse me, but haven't we met before, this morning?" And the highwayman answered, "Yes, we have." Still more surprised at his coolness, the traveler said, "Well, will you please explain the liberty you took with me?" "Certainly," was the reply, "I am broke, and can't get work, and d----d if I'll beg." The explanation seemed sincere, and at least was so convincing, that the traveler opened his purse again, gave him $5, and said "Take that to eat on, and when it's gone, if you have not found work, come to me and get more." He took it with polite thanks, hunted work, secured it, and in time became a substantial citizen of Austin, and afterwards, the man he robbed never divulged the name of the daring highwayman, and the old residents there would acknowledge that the trait displayed was characteristic of the man, if his name was given.

Article in the Reno Evening Gazette, February 27, 1891.

A Perilous Ride - An old-timer drummer was seated in the bar room late last night at a downtown hotel waiting for the midnight train to return to San Francisco. He had attended to the trade that calls him here once in three months, and having nothing to do but kill time, was entertaining a friend with talks of the road. "It is easier traveling now," he said, "than it was twenty years ago, but trade isn't as good now, and it is harder work to make a showing." Then he drifted into a comparison of the present with the past methods of locomotion, and said that in the earlier days, just after the opening of the overland railroad, there was a great deal of staging required, and during one season he traveled over 3,500 miles by stage in Utah, Idaho, Nevada and California, and over 7,000 miles by rail and steamer, and the further he traveled the more timid he became over stagecoach travel.

This, he explained, was not owing to any natural timidity inert within himself, but was due principally to the disappearance from the road of the crack whips that handled the ribbons during the times of the Pioneer and Overland lines, and the substitution of a cheap class of sheep herders on the short lines that sprung up as lateral feeders to the railroads. The old drivers had left a reputation and a romantic glamour clinging to their names that inspired their successors to the belief that a reckless swagger was all that was necessary for them to assume to add their names to the list of distinguished knights of the whip. But that couldn't be. The old stock were the product of natural genius, and the high wages secured by the best resulted in the survival of the fittest, and placing in prominent position of such experts as Curly Bill, Dan Robbins, Ned Hudson, Si Hawley, Charles Levitt, Tom Stevens, Johnny Burnett, John Wilson, Billy Hodge, Baldy Green, Hank Monk, George Richmond, Con Denise, George Clinton, Vic, Dave Red, Smith Grey, Charlie Livermore, Billy Vosburg, and others further east. When the conditions changed and the companies could no longer pay $300 per month, the old stock drifted into the livery business or sought other fields, leaving behind them the tradition of departed glory. "And so," said the drummer, "in the years from '72 to '75, I frequently rode over drives that nothing could tempt me to take again.

Mountain stage road, Detroit Publishing Co., 1899.

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One of the most perilous that I now recall," said he, "was in making the trip over the Greenhorn Mountains on the road from Caliente to Havilah in Kern County, California. There were seven of us passengers, six on the inside and one with the driver, on a thoroughbrace mud wagon that was just wide enough to hold two on a seat, and in fact, it seemed to be a very narrow tracked wagon for the side hill and neglected grade, when driven with the utmost care. But, in the hands of the drunken Texas cowboy who held the ribbons, it seemed as ready to upset as a bicycle. The driver was a man of large frame and of such great muscular strength that he was a terror dreaded by all the employees of the line, and domineered over them like a tyrant.

Of course, we passengers didn't know this, and after supper, about 8 o'clock in the evening, at the Summit station, we rode away smoking our cigars in the best of humor, and unaware that the driver had been drinking while we were eating.

As we began descending the mountain the quarter moon was at times obscured by drifting clouds that produced a play of weird shadows among the wide branching oaks that covered the hillsides, and at times, in the dim light, it seemed to us that the stage was dangerously near the outer edge of the grade. As we were all old travelers this did not create any alarm until, with a startling 'ki-yi' from the driver, he started the team in a rapid run down the grade in a narrow and dangerous place. The stage rolled heavily to one side and raised on two wheels only, when I swung myself outside, clinging to the bows, and my weight held it an instant poised in the air. It was just long enough to disclose to me that the team was beyond control and going at increasing speed to sure destruction. I acted quickly to give the others a chance, and holding my breath, I leaped into the air and down the hillside in a moment of darkness from the obscured moon. I fell heavily on my neck and shoulders with my arms folded and head forward, and turning one somersault after another rolled down the steep embankment of loose soil until stopped by an uprooted oak. I sustained no damage except a shock, and a collection of lose soil in my face and clothing, and as soon as I could rise and shake myself up I followed on down the grade to the wreck. One passenger suffered a broken leg and arm; others were badly scratched and painfully bruised; the driver was dead.

Article in the Reno Evening Gazette, March 28, 1891.

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