It must be remembered that we are here in a land of stage-drivers
and highwaymen: a land, in that sense, like England a hundred
years ago. The highway robber--road-agent, he is quaintly called--
is still busy in these parts. The fame of Vasquez is still young.
Only a few years go, the Lakeport stage was robbed a mile or two
from Calistoga. In 1879, the dentist of Mendocino City, fifty
miles away upon the coast, suddenly threw off the garments of his
trade, like Grindoff, in The Miller and his Men, and flamed forth
in his second dress as a captain of banditti. A great robbery was
followed by a long chase, a chase of days if not of weeks, among
the intricate hill-country; and the chase was followed by much
desultory fighting, in which several--and the dentist, I believe,
amongst the number--bit the dust. The grass was springing for the
first time, nourished upon their blood, when I arrived in
Calistoga. I am reminded of another highwayman of that same year.
"He had been unwell," so ran his humorous defence, "and the doctor
told him to take something, so he took the express-box."
The cultus of the stage-coachman always flourishes highest where
there are thieves on the road, and where the guard travels armed,
and the stage is not only a link between country and city, and the
vehicle of news, but has a faint warfaring aroma, like a man who
should be brother to a soldier.
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