These two boys, about 12 years of age, with their shot guns started out one pleasant morning on a hunt, and in passing the cabin of a miner, they saw coming from it a strange, suspicious looking character, who was loaded down with plunder. Being satisfied that the man was a thief, they ordered him to return the goods to the cabin, which he did. With their guns in readiness, they then ordered him to walk in the trail ahead of them, and in this manner they marched the fellow into Placerville, a distance of nearly three miles, into the hospitable arms of Sheriff Rogers, who gave him a very cordial reception. Upon investigation, he proved to be an ex-convict, and a very dangerous man, but unfortunately for him and very fortunately for the boys, too, at this time he was unarmed.
On the way to town, he tried every means to prevail upon the boys to lay down their guns. He offered to bet them five dollars that they could not kill a bird perched upon a bush near the trail. One of the boys remarked that “Them wasn’t the kind of birds we’re huntin’ for; we’re huntin’ only for jail birds.” He promised them in case they would just lay their guns down in the grass for a minute or so, he would give each of ’em a great many shares of stock in one of the richest mines in the Comstock.
They politely informed him that the only kind of stock they cared about just then was gun stock, and that they had shares enough of that to go round.
One of the most laughable cases of highway robbery occurred a few years later in Sonoma County, the agent in the affair being a youth about fourteen years of age. Commencing in fun, he unfortunately ended his joke in dead earnest.
This young man was walking out upon the road one evening, and hearing the stage coming behind him, in order to avoid being run over, climbed upon the bank alongside of the road. The latter was very narrow and sandy at this point, and the horses were walking.
Now, near to the edge of the bank where the boy was standing was a picket fence, and to keep from falling he was obliged to hug rather closely to it. In doing so one of the pickets became loose, just as the stage had got opposite to him. In a spirit of fun, without calculating upon the effect of the movement, he pointed his loose picket toward the driver of the stage, and in a coarse professional tone demanded him to stop; and, to his astonishment, the driver stopped the team. To carry out the joke, he then ordered the driver to throw out Wells & Fargo’s treasure box; and he was again astonished to see the order promptly obeyed and the treasure box fall near him upon the bank. It now became necessary, in order to continue the joke to a favorable termination, to give one more peremptory order, and to hesitate was to be lost. So he commanded the driver to “Go on!”
The stage with its load of passengers started onward, leaving the treasure in care of the picket guard. Now came the crisis in the affair; the last act in the drama which was to determine the future destiny of a bright specimen of Young America.