How to reach San Francisco in time to arrest the fugitives before their departure for New York, was not easy of solution. No steamer would leave Portland for ten days, and an overland journey of seven hundred miles, over the muddiest roads in the world, was the only alternative. The nearest telegraph station was at Yreka, four hundred miles distant. Wearied with the unremitting travel and excitement of the previous week, Beachy hired a buggy and left Portland at midnight, intending to overtake the coach which had left the morning before his arrival. This he accomplished at Salem, late in the afternoon of the next day. When the coach reached the mountains, its progress was too slow for his impatience, and he forsook it, and, mounting a horse placed at his disposal by an old friend, rode on, hoping to come up with the advance coach. He fell asleep while riding, and, on awakening, found himself seated upon the horse in front of its owner’s stable, at a village twenty miles distant from the one he had left. Here he hired a buggy and overtook the coach the next morning.
Two days afterwards he arrived at Yreka. He immediately sent a telegram to the chief of the San Francisco police, and was overjoyed upon his arrival at Shasta, twenty-four hours afterwards, to receive a reply that the men he was pursuing were in prison, awaiting his arrival. At midnight of the second day following, he was admitted to the cell where the prisoners were confined.
They had been arrested by stratagem two days before. As Howard and Lowry were escaped convicts from the California penitentiary, they naturally supposed that they had been arrested upon recognition, to be returned for their unexpired terms. This they were planning to escape by bribing the officers, whom they had told of their deposit in the mint, denying at the same time that Page had any interest in it.
When, therefore, the chief of police entered the cell, and turned on the gas, disclosing the presence of Hill Beachy, had Magruder himself appeared, they would not have been more astonished. With dismay pictured upon his countenance, Howard was the first to break that ominous silence by a question intended either to confirm their worst fears, or re-animate their hopes of escape.
“Well, old man,” said he, gazing fixedly upon Beachy, “what brought you down here?”
“You did,” was the instant reply.
“What for, pray?” persisted Howard, assuming an indifferent air.
“The murder of Lloyd Magruder and Charley Allen.”
The eyes of the questioner dropped. He drew a long breath. A deadly pallor stole over his face.
“That’s a rich note,” said Lowry, affecting to laugh. “We left Magruder at Bannack, well and hearty.”