[Illustration: Cheyenne-Black Hills Stage carrying bullion guarded by shotgun messengers] [Illustration: Deadwood Gulch in 1881] [Illustration: Modern Deadwood—seventy years later] With the shot the horses bolted, and shortly thereafter they pounded into Deadwood, guided by a hatless passenger who had managed to secure the ribbons as they dangled. Within a matter of minutes a posse had been formed and riders were making their way into the woods. Inasmuch as Bass and his companions had been acting suspiciously during the afternoon and evening, the finger of accusation pointed altogether correctly in their direction, and before the moon was down Sam Bass was well on his way to Texas, escaping Deadwood’s justice only to go to his lathered doom. This tragic foray against law and order set the stage, so to speak, and before long the spruce trails of the Black Hills, once so still and harmless, could be passed over safely only in the company of “shotgun messengers,” as the armed attendants were called. It did not take the stage companies long to come to this way of operating, for Wells Fargo, which contracted for the express business, had had a quarter-century of rugged experience. Bringing their brave talents swiftly to bear on the situation, the Wells Fargo men steel-plated the coaches to be used for bullion shipments, and brought into the Hills the famed treasure chests which had figured so largely in the history of the coming of law and order to California—metal-bound cases too heavy to be transported quickly from the scene of crime, and too sturdy to be opened except after arduous work with chisels and crowbars. The chests had been developed with the idea that a posse could be gathered at the spot where a stage had been held up before the gold could be removed from the chest or the chest itself taken far away. A more important safety factor than the chests was the reputation of the shotgun messengers. The express companies went to great lengths to engage only the most fearless and law-abiding men they could find for this dangerous task, and time and time again thousands upon thousands of dollars in bullion rode across the lonely trails with no more than one man, his shotgun, and his reputation for bravery guarding it.