The unceasing flood of gold from the seemingly exhaustless gulch caused three or four more little camps or towns to spring up; but Virginia City now took the palm for frontier
reputation in hardness. Ten millions in "dust" was washed out in one year. Every one had gold, sacks and cans of it. The wild license of the place was unspeakably vitiating. Fights with weapons were incessant. Rude dance halls and saloons were crowded with truculent, armed men in search of trouble. Churches and schools were unknown. Tents, log cabins, and brush shanties made the residences. "Hacks rattled to and fro between the several towns, freighted with drunken and rowdy humanity of both sexes. Citizens of acknowledged respectability often walked, more often perhaps rode side by side on horseback, with noted courtesans, in open day, through the crowded streets, and seemingly suffered no harm in reputation. Pistols flashed, bowie-knives flourished, oaths filled the air. This was indeed the reign of unbridled license, and men who at first regarded it with disgust and terror, by constant exposure soon learned to become part of it, and to forget that they had ever been aught else. Judges, lawyers, doctors, even clergymen, could not claim exemption."
This was in 1863. At that time, the nearest capitals were Olympia, on Puget Sound; Yankton, two thousand miles away; and Lewiston,
seven hundred miles away. What machinery of the law was there to hinder Plummer and his men? What better field than this one, literally overflowing with gold, could they have asked for their operations? And what better chief than Plummer?
His next effort was to be appointed deputy United States marshal, and he received the indorsement of the leading men of Bannack. Plummer afterward tried several times to kill Nathaniel P. Langford, who caused his defeat, but was unsuccessful in getting the opportunity he sought.
From Bannack to Salt Lake City was about five hundred miles. Mails by this time came in from Salt Lake City, which was the supply point. If a man wanted to send out gold to his people in the States, it had to go over this long trail across the wild regions. There was no mail service, and no express office nearer than Salt Lake. Merchants sent out their funds by private messenger. Every such journey was a risk of death. Plummer had clerks in every institution that was making money, and these kept him posted as to the times when shipments of dust were about to be made; they also told him when any well-staked miner was
going out to the States. Plummer's men were posted all along these mountain trails. No one will ever know how many men were killed in all on the Salt Lake trail.
There was a stage also between Bannack and Virginia City, and this was regarded as a legitimate and regular booty producer by the gang. Whenever a rich passenger took stage, a confederate at the place put a mark on the vehicle so that it could be read at the next stop. At this point there was sure to be others of the gang, who attended to further details. Sometimes two or three thousand dollars would be taken from a single passenger. A stage often carried fifteen or twenty thousand dollars in dust. Plummer knew when and where and how each stage was robbed, but in his capacity as sheriff covered up the traces of all his associates.
The robbers who did the work were usually masked, and although suspicions were rife and mutterings began to grow louder, there was no actual evidence against Plummer until one day he held up a young man by name of Tilden, who voiced his belief that he knew the man who had held him up. Further evidence was soon to follow. A pack-train, bound for Salt
Lake, had no less than eighty thousand dollars in dust in its charge, and Plummer had sent out Dutch John and Steve Marshland to hold up the train. The freighters were too plucky, and both the bandits were wounded, and so marked, although for the time they escaped. George Ives also was recognized by one or two victims and began to be watched on account of his numerous open murders.