These two men placed three dummies in a half-exposed position near the road and succeeded in making off with $36,000 in gold bullion without firing a shot. The stage carried no passengers. The driver returned to Malad and said that he had been held up by a gang of five men. After some deliberation, J. N. Ireland, now a resident of Pocatello, Tom Oakley, Daniel Robbins and four others, set out to trail the bandits. This was not a difficult matter in the early days, provided the fugitives took to the brush, which they were obliged to do in most cases in order to find concealment. Their horses, in pushing a way through the growth, left a well-defined track that a child could follow, and as travelers were few, there was little danger of hitting the wrong trail. But while it was sometimes an easy matter to follow up a gang of robbers, few men cared to undertake the task. A road agent knew that capture probably meant death and his very occupation was a sufficient guarantee that he would kill without scruple. He had the advantage, too of being able to ambush his pursuers, and shoot them before they could seek cover. The posse of seven men took up the trail of the bandits at the spot where the hold-up occurred and traced them to Birch Creek. As evening came on and darkness closed in, and when they had ridden some twenty miles, the pursuers came within a half mile of the robbers, whom they found to be on the opposite side of the creek. In the early morning they crossed the creek, and were close upon Flag and Stone, before those men were aware of their proximity. Not expecting pursuit, the highwaymen were not on their guard. They concealed themselves in a steep hollow, where slender willows, about the thickness of a man’s finger, and seven feet high, grew in such profusion that they formed an impenetrable hiding place. Mr. Ireland and his party rode past this hollow to the robbers’ horses, where a council of war was held. At last Mr. Ireland and Dan Robbins volunteered to trail Flag and Stone while three of the party remained with the horses, and Tom Oakley, armed with a very fine rifle belonging to Mr. Ireland, took a position on the hillside behind a rock, where he could pick off the road agents if they emerged from the brush. Cautiously, with every sense alert, the two daring men worked their way into the hollow. They knew they were within a few feet of their quarry, but could see nothing of them. Presently Mr. Ireland said: “Dan, here’s where we’re close upon them, because they have trampled these willows down and they have sprung up again.” At the same moment Oakley’s voice called a warning from the hill, “Look out! You’re close on them!” Simultaneously a shot rang out and Daniel Robbins fell, riddled with shot. Flag and Stone made a dash from cover, but Oakley brought them both down with two well-directed shots from his rifle. The two men lay side by side, Flag dead, and Stone with a wound in his leg that necessitated its amputation.