The gang then directed their attention to the passengers, most of whom were now awake, and beginning to be aware of the unpleasant circumstances in which they were placed. Some were inclined to resist the highwaymen; but the more prudent among them counselled submission, as very few of them had available firearms, and they were ignorant of the strength of the band, and feared more serious consequences if they were driven to resort to extremes. Of the likelihood of this they had an early intimation; for a passenger who chanced to be standing on the outside platform of one of the carriages as the train entered the station, had a couple of pistol-shots fired at him, luckily without doing him any injury. He retreated into the carriage, and was directly followed by the robbers, who entered the car at both ends, and desired the passengers to hold up their hands; a command they all instantly obeyed. They were then rifled one after the other; their pockets being thoroughly searched, watches, purses, and all loose money being taken away. This was done in all the open carriages; but the doors of the two Pullman sleeping-cars being locked, they did not obtain an entrance into either; and the inmates probably thinking discretion the better part of valour, remained ensconced within their shelter. Whether it would long have served as such cannot now be determined; possibly the robbers might have forced the doors had time been allowed them; but fortunately for the travellers the whistle of an approaching goods-train scared the gang, who made a precipitate retreat from the scene of their depredations, carrying their booty along with them.
Relieved of their unwelcome presence, the passengers issued forth from the cars and began to relate their various experiences. Luckily no one was seriously wounded. The postal agent had been violently knocked against the carriage-door at the first rush of the thieves, and was considerably bruised, and another man had his forehead grazed by a pistol bullet; but beyond those comparatively trifling injuries they all escaped with the fright and the loss of every article of value on which the robbers had time to lay their hands. Most of the passengers in the open cars were cleared of whatever money they had about them, and several of them lost gold and silver watches; but even in the excitement of the moment a few of them had sufficient presence of mind to enable them hastily to secrete purses and pocket-books, either by slipping them under the cushions or dropping them on the floor. A Jew named Harris was robbed of four hundred and fifty dollars and his watch; but while raising his hands in obedience to the command of ‘Hands up!’ he skilfully contrived to drop a roll of notes on the seat beside him, which was overlooked by the robbers as they examined his pockets. A miner who wore a belt containing eleven thousand dollars in gold, was quick enough to fasten it round the waist of his little child, who was not molested by the thieves, and this large sum fortunately escaped their clutches. They managed, however, in the short space of time at their disposal to make some very pretty pickings out of the train; their gains being computed at fully fifty thousand dollars, besides watches and other articles of value.
The scheme had evidently been a most carefully organised one, and was carried out in every detail with perfect coolness and regularity, not a moment being wasted, and the members of the gang having clearly been previously instructed as to the duty each man was to perform. It is supposed they had fastened their horses somewhere at the back of the station, as on quitting the train they immediately disappeared without leaving any traces behind them.
An alarm was at once given, and several parties started in pursuit; but their search was entirely unsuccessful so far as regarded hearing any tidings of the robbers. The following day a band of searchers found among the mountains ten or twelve miles from the station of Big Springs, a rifle, a pistol, and an empty money-box; proving indisputably that the highwaymen had passed that way. It was well known that some very notorious Missouri bandits were at large among the Black Hills, and it is believed that they were the perpetrators of the attack on the train. A large reward was offered for their apprehension; but so far as we know, they have hitherto managed to elude all pursuit, and it is doubtful whether they may ever be brought to justice. With such possible contingencies, travelling by the Union Pacific, or any other railway in the Far West, is not a pleasant idea to contemplate.
POPULAR ERRORS REGARDING THE SHREW-MOUSE.
No popular error is more absolutely destitute of foundation than that regarding the shrew. This little quadruped, very common in meadows and pastures in all parts of Britain, and generally known as the shrew-mouse, is as harmless as any creature that lives. Its food consists of insects and their larvæ; and its teeth are very small, so that it is scarcely able to bite through the human skin. Yet according to a popular belief, very widely prevalent, its bite is most venomous, and in many districts in England the viper is less feared. Nor is it only its bite that is supposed to be deadly to man or beast. Contact with it in any way is accounted extremely dangerous; and cattle seized with any malady, especially if shewing any appearance of numbness in the legs, are apt to be reputed ‘shrew-struck.’ Horses in particular are accounted very liable to suffer from this cause. An infallible cure, however, was to be found in dragging the shrew-struck animal through a bramble rooted at both ends, or in the application of a twig of a shrew-ash. ‘A shrew-ash,’ says White, in his Natural History of Selborne, ‘is an ash whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the pain which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse over the part affected; for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature, that whenever it creeps over a beast, whether it be horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of its limbs. Against this accident, to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever.’ This tree, whose every branch possessed such a potent charm, was an ash in the trunk of which an auger-hole had been bored, and a living shrew put into the hole, which was then closed with a wooden plug. The incantations used when this was done have now been forgotten; the shrew-ash has lost its old repute; but the belief in its virtues still lingers in some quarters, and the belief in the dangerous bite and maleficent touch of the shrew is strong among the country-people in many parts of England. How confidently this belief was entertained even by the best educated in former times appears from many allusions to it by old authors. It was received as an unquestionable fact of natural history. In Topsel’s History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, published in 1658, it is said of the shrew, that ‘it is a ravening beast, feigning itself gentle and tame; but being touched, it biteth deep and poisoneth deadly; it beareth a cruel mind, desiring to hurt anything;’ with much more of the like nature, and much concerning medicinal virtues ascribed to this little animal. But the belief in the deadliness of the shrew’s bite has been transmitted from one generation to another from times far more remote than those of this credulous author. It prevailed among the ancient Romans, and their remedy for a shrew’s bite was to cut the body of the little creature asunder and place it on the injured part.
FLOATING-LIGHTS.
Besides the lighthouses which warn the sailor of danger and guide him in his course amidst the darkness of night, there are along the British coasts numerous floating-lights or light-vessels in situations where the erection of a lighthouse is impossible, where there are banks or shoals perilous to ships but affording no foundation for a building. These vessels ride at anchor in places that have been selected for them, and which are as exactly marked on the charts as the positions of the lighthouses. Most of them are stationed off the east coast of England from the mouth of the Humber southward; a few on other parts of the English coast, and on that of Ireland; and two on the coast of Scotland. They are generally vessels of about one hundred and fifty tons, specially constructed with a view to their riding safely at anchor in exposed situations and during the most severe storms, without regard to sailing-powers, of which they have no need; and it has been an extremely rare thing for any of them to be driven from their moorings or to experience any disaster. The mariner counts upon the guidance of their light in any weather, as confidently as he does on that of a lighthouse built upon a rock.