Doctor, girl and Chinaman
were too much occupied with their own thoughts to take much notice of
the stage-driver, who, though he assumed an air of carelessness, was, in
reality, on the watch for spies and robbers. For the bankers at Moore's
Flat, a few miles further on, were planning to smuggle several thousand
dollars' worth of gold dust to Nevada City that morning. Mat Bailey was
a brave fellow, but he preferred the old days of armed guards and hard
fighting to these dubious days when stage-drivers went unarmed to avoid
the suspicion of carrying treasure. Charley Chu with his pistol had the
right idea; and yet that very pistol might queer things to-day.
Over this road for twenty-five years treasure to the amount of many
millions of dollars had been carried out of the mountains; and Mat could
have told you many thrilling tales of highwaymen. A short distance
beyond Moore's Flat was Bloody Run, a rendezvous of Mexican bandits,
back in the fifties. Not many years since, in the canon of the South
Yuba, Steve Venard, with his repeating rifle, had surprised and killed
three men who had robbed the Wells Fargo Express. Some people hinted
that when Steve hunted up the thieves and shot them in one, two, three
order, he simply betrayed his own confederates.
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