“Hold on, Charley,” and turning to the discomfited man I added,
“I want my way-pocket.”
“You can’t have it,” was the prompt reply.
“But I must have it,” I insisted. “I can’t go on without it. The company will discharge a messenger who loses his way-pocket.”
This reply seemed to allay his suspicions. He stepped into the sage brush and returned in a few minutes with the pocket, which he gave me, and ordered us quite peremptorily to drive on.
Charley needed no second invitation, but drove on quite briskly. After mutually congratulating each other on our escape, we naturally recounted the events of the evening, and among other things commented upon the feminine voice of the smaller of the robbers; but I soon dismissed the subject, feeling too well satisfied with the success of an artifice which had saved the bank a considerable sum of money, and possibly both of us from a fatal calamity.
Several months after this adventure, while returning by stage from Leadville to Pueblo, the driver directed my attention to a grave marked by a low wooden slab on the plateau overlooking the Arkansas River a short distance below Buena Vista. Just beyond it was an abrupt ravine.
“I never pass that grave,” said the driver, “without being reminded of the event connected with it. A few weeks ago a band of horses had been stolen from a ranche on the road between Trinidad and Wagon Mound Buttes, by two horse-thieves who were pursued by the owners over the range into the Arkansas Valley. They were overtaken with the stolen herd in that ravine. On attempting to enter it the smaller thief commanded the pursuing party to halt, disregarding which, he fired upon and wounded two of them. Roused by the firing, the other thief appeared, and a pitched battle ensued, in which he was slain outright, and the other fatally wounded. Surgical aid was obtained, and the surviving thief was found to be a woman. She died in a few days thereafter, refusing to the last to reveal her history, or furnish any clew by which it might be traced.” This event occurring so soon after the attempt to rob the coach, convinced the people thereabouts of the identity of the persons engaged in both outrages.
Many of the “home stations” on the stage lines, where meals were served, were favorite camping grounds for freighters engaged in the transportation of merchandise from the railroad to the interior towns. On the road between Kelton and Boise, the station at Rock Creek, one hundred miles distant from the railroad, was kept by Charles Trotter. It was one of the few stopping-places where palatable meals were served. Its reputation in this respect won for it a widespread popularity with the travelling public, and in process of time a small settlement sprung up around it. A store was opened, where emigrants and others could obtain provisions, clothing, and such other necessaries as they needed. Naturally enough, many of the newcomers were rough in their tastes, fond of gambling, drinking, and the athletic sports common in an unorganized community. The influence exercised by a few citizens of the better class was all that saved the little settlement from lapsing into lawlessness and crime.
My diary for 1877 shows that on September 17 I passed through Rock Creek by stage en route for Boise. Our coach entered the place about the middle of the afternoon. An Englishman who had arrived in America a fortnight before, was the only passenger besides myself. It was his first journey in a stage coach, and the rough and desolate region through which it lay presented to his mind many features of novelty and interest, mingled with no little disquietude at the strange character of his surroundings. He was in a condition to be alarmed at anything.