numerous other Chinamen had dug this very ditch. What would California
have been without Chinese labor? Industrious Chinamen built the railroad
over the Sierras to the East and civilization. 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. But the express company
gave him a handsome rifle and a generous share of the gold recovered; I
prefer to believe that Steve was an honest man.

The stage arrived at Moore's Flat, and Mat Bailey hurriedly transferred
baggage and passengers to the gaily painted and picturesque stage-coach
which, drawn by four strong horses, was to continue the journey. A pair
of horses and a mountain wagon had handled the traffic to that point;
but at the present time, when Moore's Flat can boast but eleven
inhabitants, the transfer to the stage-coach is made at North
Bloomfield, several miles further on. But in 1879, Moore's Flat, Eureka
Township, was a thriving place, employing hundreds of miners. The great
sluices, blasted deep into solid rock, then ran with the wash from high
walls of dirt and gravel played upon by streams of water in the process
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