“I can’t help it, wife,” persisted Beachy. “Those three rascals, Doc. Howard, Chris Lowry, and Jim Romaine, with another hangdog-looking fellow, came into town to-night in disguise, and, under assumed names, took passage in the coach to Walla Walla. They followed Magruder to the Bannack mines, and have doubtless killed him while on his way home. Their cantinas are filled with his gold dust.”
“How improbable, Hill,” said Mrs. Beachy, smiling. “Why, only yesterday Lloyd’s wife received a letter from him, saying that he would not start for twelve days, and that he would have a strong company with him.”
“Well, well, Maggie, let’s drop the subject. Time will tell whether my suspicions are correct.”
Let us inquire into the cause of Hill Beachy’s terrible suspicion.
Three months before this conversation occurred, Lloyd Magruder, a wealthy merchant of Elk City, loaded a pack train with merchandise, and made the long and dangerous journey of five hundred miles, by an Indian trail over the mountains, to the Bannack mines, in that part of Idaho afterwards embraced in the boundaries of Montana. The night preceding his departure, Hill Beachy, the landlord of the Luna House in Lewiston, a warm personal friend of Magruder, dreamed that he saw Chris Lowry dash Magruder’s brains out with an axe. He related the dream to his wife the next morning, and expressed great fears for the safety of his friend. She was desirous of telling Magruder; but as his investment was large, and he was ready to start upon his journey, Beachy thought it would only introduce a disturbing element into the enterprise, without effecting its abandonment, and expose him to the laughter and sneers of the public. But he did not conceal the anxiety which the dream had occasioned in his own mind, and was greatly relieved when news came, six weeks afterwards, of the safe arrival of Magruder at Bannack.
On the morning of the day after Magruder left Lewiston, Howard, Lowry, and Romaine, in company with Bob Zachary and three other roughs, departed with the avowed intention of going to Oregon. As soon, however, as they had proceeded a sufficient distance in that direction to escape observation, they turned towards Bannack, and after a few days’ journey were joined by William Page, an old mountain teamster. The party followed on in the track of Magruder’s train, which they overtook when within three days’ journey of Bannack, and accompanied it to its place of destination.
Magruder was disappointed, on his arrival at Bannack, to learn that the camp had been deserted by most of the miners, who had gone to the extensive placer mines in Alder Gulch at Virginia City, seventy-five miles distant, where the writer was then residing. Three days afterwards, however, he was well satisfied, on his arrival there, to find an active mining camp of six thousand inhabitants, all eager to purchase his wares as rapidly as they could be displayed. Howard, Lowry, Romaine, and Page found comfortable quarters in the building occupied by Magruder, and were provided by him with employment during his six weeks’ stay in Virginia City. No one, except himself, knew better than they the amount of his accumulations. His confidence in them was unbounded. On his offer to pay them two hundred dollars each, they had agreed to accompany him as assistants and guards on his return to Lewiston. The negotiations with Magruder for their employment were conducted by Howard, who was a physician of marked ability, and whose pleasing address was well calculated to allay all suspicion concerning their real motives in joining the party. Howard, Lowry, and Romaine, while at Lewiston, were classed among the vilest roughs of the town. The former two were understood to be escaped convicts from the California penitentiary. They had been concerned in numerous robberies, and were suspected of connection with Plummer’s infamous gang. Magruder, whose residence was at Elk City, was entirely unacquainted with their history, and, from the simulated fidelity of their conduct while in his employ, had no reason to suspect them of criminal designs. He was very fortunate in the disposition of his merchandise, realizing therefor twenty-four thousand dollars in gold dust, and a drove of seventy fine mules.
A few days before his departure from Virginia City, Charley Allen, a successful miner, and two young men, brothers, by the name of Horace and Robert Chalmers, who had just arrived in the mountains from Booneville, Missouri, and William Phillips, an old pioneer in the country, arranged to unite their trains with his, and all make the trip together as one company. Romaine tried to dissuade Phillips from going with the others, but gave no reason for what seemed to the latter a strange request.
It was a bright October morning when the train left Virginia City, and moved slowly down Alder Creek, into the picturesque valley of the Pas-sam-a-ri. The sun shone; the mountain atmosphere was crisp and exhilarating. The long plain stretching away to the base of the Ruby range reflected upon its mirror-like surface that magnificent group of pine-covered mountains, along whose sides glinted in the sunbeams the bewitching hues that give them their name. Towering on the right, rose the twin pinnacles of Ramshorn and Mill Creek; and, afar in the distance, painted upon the horizon, was the superb outline of the main range of the old Rockies, and Table Mountain lifting its glittering plateau of snow far above the surrounding peaks. Filled with the inspiration naturally enkindled by these majestic views, the men, with all the animation and abandon of uncaged schoolboys, shouted and sung as they galloped along and hurried the train across the widespread valley. Into the hills, over the mountains, across the streams, through the cañons they scampered, entering Bannack the third day, just as the sun was setting.
Business detained them at Bannack the three following days. With the design of misleading the villains at Lewiston who might be on the watch for his return, Magruder sent by a company which left the morning after his arrival, a letter to his wife, telling her of his success, and that he would leave for home with a train strongly guarded, in twelve days. While he was thus planning the way for a safe return, Howard was equally busy in maturing a scheme to rob him on the route. This infernal project, the fruit of long contemplation, he now for the first time unfolded to Lowry and Romaine, who gave it their eager compliance. Meeting with Bob Zachary, he confided it to him; but, on learning that it could not be effected without the possible murder of Magruder, and the four persons accompanying him, Zachary, villain as he was, declined all participation in it. It was understood by the three that on the eighth day of the journey, when the train would make camp in the Bitter Root Mountains, at a distance of one hundred miles or more from any white settlers, they would carry their diabolical design into execution. Howard declared that it could not be done without killing the five owners of the trains. Page was to be kept in ignorance of the plot until the eve of its performance.