“Too late,” shouted the captain. “The boat cannot be delayed. Cast off.”
The spokesman for the emigrants pleaded hard for a passage. Beachy relented.
“Take them on board for luck,” said he to the captain.
No other cause for detention occurring, the boat swung off, and proceeded down the river, arriving at Celilo, eighty-five miles below, late in the evening. From that point navigation is impeded by rapids for sixteen miles, which distance is travelled by railroad. The cars would not leave until the next morning,—a delay which might afford the fugitives time for escape. In this exigency Beachy applied to the emigrants, and by pledging the boat as security for the return of their horses, and paying a round sum, hired three of them to convey Captain Ankeny, Farrell, and himself to the Dalles. It was after one o’clock in the morning when they entered Dalles City. Ankeny and Farrell rode down to the hotel to reconnoitre, and report to Beachy, who awaited their return in the outskirts. It was a bright, starlight night. A man, whose form Beachy recognized, passed hurriedly by the spot where he stood. Hailing him, he unfolded the object of his mission, and learned that three of the party he was pursuing had left the Dalles on a steamboat for Portland two days before. The other, he was afterwards informed, had gone since.
In company with Tom Farrell, he took passage on the next steamer for Portland, arriving there twenty-four hours after the fugitives had left for San Francisco. Farrell hurried on to Astoria, the only port where the steamer stopped on its passage to the ocean, to ascertain if they had landed there, while Beachy put in execution a little scheme by which he hoped to obtain full information concerning their future movements.
A year before this time, Beachy had concealed from the pursuit of the Vigilantes at Lewiston a young man accused of stealing, whom he had known in boyhood. During his concealment, with much other information, he told Beachy of the robbery of a jewelry establishment at Victoria, in British Columbia, in which he was concerned with Howard, Lowry, and Romaine. They deposited their plunder with an accomplice at Portland. This man still resided at Portland, and had probably met with Howard and his companions during their stay. If so, he was doubtless possessed of information which would aid in their detection.
At every place where they had stopped on the trip to Portland, the guilty men had told the same story about their collision at, and flight from, Boise Basin. Acting upon the belief that they had repeated it to their old confederate at Portland, Beachy, on the same evening of his arrival, wrapped in blanket and muffler, sallied forth to a remote quarter of the town, where he resided. No one responded to his rap upon the door. He crossed the street to a clump of bushes to watch. A half-hour passed, and a woman entered the dwelling. Recrossing, he repeated the alarm. The woman met him at the door. With much simulated nervousness, and mystery of manner and tone, he inquired for the man.
“He is very busy, and will not be home until late, if at all,” replied the woman.
“I must see him immediately,” urged Beachy, with increasing earnestness. “My life depends upon it. Here, madam,” he continued, thrusting a hundred dollars into her hands, “secure me an interview as soon as possible. He is the only person here who can aid my escape. I dare not be seen, but will conceal myself in the clump until he comes.”
Beachy says he never was satisfied whether it was gold or pure womanly sympathy for his apparent distress which obtained for him a speedy meeting. By assuming the character of a partner in the Boise enterprise who had miraculously escaped arrest, and was then in pursuit of his companions, he learned that the men he was pursuing intended to remain in San Francisco until they could have their dust, amounting to seventeen thousand dollars, coined, when they would go to New York by way of the Isthmus, and return to Virginia City in the spring. To make the delusion perfect, Beachy, at the close of the interview, gave his informant one hundred and fifty dollars, with which the latter purchased for him a horse, which he delivered to Beachy at a late hour of the evening, at East Portland, on the opposite bank of the Willamette River. Bidding him good-bye, Beachy mounted the horse, and was soon lost to view in the pine forest, his dupe believing that he had enabled him to escape the authorities of Boise. Two hours afterwards the horse was returned to its owner, and the purchase money restored.