Forty-one Thieves | Page 3

known as hydraulic mining. Jack Vizzard, the watchman,
threaded those sluiceways armed with a shot-gun.
At Moore's Flat, six men and two women boarded the stage; and Mat
Bailey took in charge a small leather valise, smuggled out of the back
door of the bank and handed to him carelessly. Mat received it without
the flicker of an eyelash. Nevertheless, he scrutinized the eight new
passengers, with apparent indifference but with unerring judgment. All
except two, a man and a woman, were personally known to him. And
these excited less suspicion than two well-known gamblers, who
greeted Mat cordially.
"It hurts business, Mat, to ship so much dust out of the country," said
one.
"Damn shame," said the other.
Mat paid no attention to these remarks, pretending to be busy with the
baggage. Quite accidentally he lifted an old valise belonging to Will
Cummins, who, dressed in a long linen duster, had just boarded the
stage. Cummins exchanged glances with the driver, and luckily, as Mat
thought, the gamblers seemed to take no notice.
Will Cummins had been in the gold regions twenty-five years. He had
already made and lost one small fortune, and now at the age of
forty-five, with all his available worldly goods, some seven thousand
dollars in bullion, he was homeward bound to Reedsville, Pennsylvania.
In the full vigor of manhood, he was a Californian of the highest type.
He had always stood for law and order, and was much beloved by
decent people. By the other sort it was well understood that Will
Cummins was a good shot, and would fight to a finish. He was a man
of medium height, possessed of clear gray eyes and an open

countenance. The outlines of a six-shooter were clearly discernible
under his duster.
In a cloud of dust, to the clink of horse-shoes, the stage rolled out of
Moore's Flat, and was soon in the dark woods of Bloody Run.
"Good morning, Mr. Cummins."
It was the school-teacher who spoke; and Cummins, susceptible to
feminine charms, bowed graciously.
"Do you know, Mr. Cummins, it always gives me the shivers to pass
through these woods. So many dreadful things have happened here."
"Why, yes," answered Cummins, good-naturedly. "It was along here
somewhere, I think, that the darkey, George Washington, was
captured."
"Tell me about it," said Mamie.
"Oh, George was violently opposed to Chinese cheap labor; so he made
it his business to rob Chinamen. But the Chinamen caught him, tied his
hands and feet, slung him on a pole like so much pork and started him
for Moore's Flat, taking pains to bump him against every stump and
boulder en route."
Charley Chu was grinning in pleasant reverie. Mamie laughed.
"But the funny thing in this little episode," continued Cummins, "was
the defense set up by George Washington's lawyer. There was no doubt
that George was guilty of highway robbery. He had been caught
red-handed, and ten Chinamen were prepared to testify to the fact. But
counsel argued that by the laws of the State a white man could not be
convicted on the testimony of Chinamen; and that, within the meaning
of the statute, in view of recent amendments to the Constitution of the
United States, George was a white man. The judge ruled that the point
was well taken; and, inasmuch as the prisoner had been thoroughly
bumped, he dismissed the case."

The story is well known in Nevada County; but Mamie laughed
gleefully, and turned her saucy eyes upon Charley:
"Did you help to bump George Washington?"
The Celestial was an honest man, and shook his head:
"Me only look on. That cullud niggah he lob me."
Will Cummins glanced at the Chinaman's pistol and smiled. By this
time the stage had crossed Bloody Run and was ascending the high
narrow ridge known as the Back-Bone, beyond which lay the village of
North Bloomfield. By the roadside loomed a tall lone rock, placed as if
by a perverse Providence especially to shelter highwaymen. For a
moment Cummins looked grave, and he reached for his six-shooter.
Mat Bailey cracked his whip and dashed by as if under fire.
From the Back-Bone the descent to North Bloomfield was very steep,
and was made with grinding of brakes and precipitate speed. Arrived at
the post-office, Dr. Mason and the two gamblers left the coach; and a
store-keeper and two surveyors employed by the great Malakoff
Mining Company took passage to Nevada City. In those halcyon days
of hydraulic mining, the Malakoff, employing fifty men, was known to
clean up $100,000 in thirty days. It was five hundred feet through dirt
and gravel to bed-rock, and a veritable cañon had been washed out of
the earth.
The next stop was Lake City,--a name illustrative of Californian
megalomania; for the lake,