The driver, Tom Myers, did not understand the command, and simply looked up, half asleep, and said to the horses, “Gid-dap!”
“Halt!” came the words again, louder and unmistakable.
Myers halted. Standing at the end of an elongated bunch of pines where he had been invisible until the heads of the horses appeared stood the highwayman, with menacing gun covering the head of the driver.
“Throw out your treasure and mail!” came the command.
“I have mail, but no treasure,” said my friend Tom, as he afterward pointed out the spot and told the story. “Come and get it.”
The lone robber rifled the sacks, turned the pockets of the travelers inside out, and 115 bade them drive on without imitating Lot’s wife; he was never caught.
To be sure, this is a tame story, and many readers doubtless can tell one more thrilling; but this one is true.
The stagecoach is a thing of the past, but we still have the hardy, dust-covered, mud-daubed teamster, who yet must haul the freight far back into hills where for ages there will be no railway. To these, Godspeed and good cheer! They live by the Trails; they eat at the wheel; they sleep under the wagon; they are kindly and obliging even when their heavily belled teams of six to fourteen or more head of horses meet another loaded caravan in some narrow pass where the highest engineering ability is needed to get by in safety; and they never leave a fellow-traveler in distress.