Sample Chapter

   The scent of oak leaves and dry grass mingled with the pungent smell of horse sweat and powdery red dust as the Sonora-Milton stage toiled up the steep Funk Hill grade that morning of July 26, 1875. The sun warm on his back, stage driver John Shine reclined in his seat, lines loose in his hands, and relaxed for the first time since leaving    Sonora three hours earlier. The worst of the trip--the steepest and most winding--down to Reynolds Ferry in the Stanislaus River Canyon, was behind him. In another hour he would be pulling into the mining town of Copperopolis and by lunch time he would be unloading at the railroad depot in Milton.
   The stage, a “mud wagon,” was carrying ten passengers--eight women and children and two men--one of whom was John Olive, co-owner of the stage line1. As usual, it carried a U.S. mail pouch and a Wells Fargo & Company express box. But, on this occasion the box contained no gold bullion and less than three hundred dollars in gold notes. Because of the low value of the shipment, Wells Fargo had not provided the usual messenger (shotgun guard). That too was out of the ordinary, for the stagecoaches on the Sonora-Milton run, particularly on that portion lying in Calaveras County which followed the Reynolds Ferry Road, had become favorite victims of highwaymen. Stages on that run had been robbed four times in the past four years. Two of these had occurred within the past four months--on March 1 and March 23. The last netted three gunmen more then sixty-five hundred dollars2, big money for 1875.
   The stage was nearing the top of Funk Hill at the head of Yaqui Gulch, when suddenly a masked gunman brandishing a shotgun leaped from behind a boulder into the middle of the road, directly in front of the horses. As Shine struggled to control his frightened team, the bandit, his head covered by a flour sack mask, leveled the shotgun. In a firm, distinctive voice, he called out, “Please throw down the box!”
    John Shine was a brave man, but he was no fool. Unarmed and looking down the wrong end of a double barreled shotgun, he had little choice but to obey the order. But, it was not easy to lift the somewhat bulky, iron bound Wells Fargo box with one hand, while holding the reins with the other. When Shine momentarily hesitated while trying to grasp the box, the gunman, still standing in the road, glanced toward the boulder strewn hillside and shouted, “If he makes a move, give him a volley, boys.” From the corner of his eye as he lifted the heavy express box to toss it over the side, Shine saw what appeared to be gun barrels pointed at him from behind a rocky outcropping on the uphill side of the road.

     Passenger John Olive, a young Sonora miner next to him, and several women passengers poked their heads through the stage coach windows to see what was happening. At sight of the armed man, the women withdrew from the windows with squawks of surprise and fright. From a holster at his waist the young miner whipped out a long barreled revolver, but before he could raise the gun Olive gripped his wrist and shoved the weapon toward the floor. “Put that damned thing away--do you want to get us all killed,” he ordered in a loud stage whisper.
   The box landed with a thump on the edge of the dusty road, and as it did, one of the now thoroughly frightened women inside the stage reached out of the window and dropped her purse on the ground. With his shotgun still aimed at the stage driver, the bandit walked forward, picked up the purse and, with a courteous bow, dropped it back into the coach.3
   “I don’t want your money--only the express box and mail.” Then, with a sweep of his hand, he motioned John Shine to drive on up the hill. Shine, as he pulled away, chanced a glance backward and saw the bandit already attacking the express box with a hatchet.
Shine’s stage had hardly disappeared up the grade when a second stagecoach, driven by Donald McLean of Sonora, rounded a curve and came upon the masked man still laboring with the hatchet to open the express box. An instant later McLean and his several passengers found themselves confronted by the business end of the shotgun.
   “Please throw down the box,” the masked gunman requested, but the stage was allowed to pass undisturbed after McLean informed the bandit he was carrying no treasure. The road agent made no attempt to rob McLean or his passengers of their personal funds.
   At the top of the hill McLean’s stage caught up with Shine’s, and there both halted while the drivers, accompanied by several male passengers, walked back to where they could view the robbery scene. As they drew close enough to clearly see the boulder behind which the robber had been hiding, they were shocked to find the rifle barrels they had seen pointing at them were nothing more than sticks which had been carefully arranged to look like guns.
   With the empty express box and the mail sacks the bandit had cut open, Shine hurriedly completed the trip to Copperopolis, where he reported the robbery to Wells Fargo agent J. M. Pike. Pike immediately sent a telegram to San Andreas, the county seat, to notify Calaveras County Sheriff Benjamin Thorn, while Shine continued his trip to Milton.4
   In relating details of the robbery to the Copperopolis Wells Fargo agent, and on the following day to Sheriff Thorn, several things stood out in John Shine’s memory. The stage robber wore a unique mask--a flour sack with eyeholes cut in it, that covered his entire head and hat. He wore a soiled linen duster over what appeared to be rough, miner’s clothing, and his boots were covered by heavy woolen boot socks, apparently to distort his foot prints.