At daylight two herders were sent for the horses. One returned at eight o’clock, with the report that they could not be found. An hour afterwards the other brought in the same horses that came with the coach the previous evening. “Necessity knows no law,” and so with a pair of these for leaders, and two worn-out wheelers, the coach was soon declared ready for a start. Just at this time, Oliver’s coach from Bannack drove up, _en route_ for Virginia City, and fresh drinks were called for. In the meantime a rough by the name of Bob Zachary, who was going to Bannack with a couple of horses, insisted that Wilkinson should bear him company and ride one of them. They departed on a canter in advance of the coach, and were soon out of sight. Bunton, who had been distributing liquor among the passengers of the coaches, and trying to make himself generally agreeable, came out with the bottle and a tumbler to give Rumsey a drink. “Wait a few minutes, Billy,” said he, “and I will ride to Bannack with you. These passengers will be gone in a moment.” “Get up on the box with me,” replied Rumsey. “These old ‘plugs’ at the wheel will need pretty constant whipping, and my exercise in that line yesterday has lamed my arm.” “I’m a good whipper,” Bunton responded, laughing, “and if there’s any ‘go’ in them, I can bring it out. They’re a pair of ‘played out’ wheelers that had been turned out to rest, and I think we’ll fail to get them beyond a walk,—but we’ll give them a try.” The weather was cold and blustering. The curtains of, the coach were fastened down. Percy, Madison, and “Bummer Dan” got in, and Bunton mounted the box beside Rumsey. The horses began to weaken before they reached the crossing of the creek, less than a mile away. There the road entered the gulch. Bunton, who had succeeded, as he intended, in tiring the horses, surrendered the whip to Rumsey and got inside the coach. He knew what was coming. Rumsey whipped up the wheelers, but could not urge them into any faster gait. Cursing his “slow poke of a team,” his eye caught the figures of two horsemen entering the gulch from a dry ravine a few rods in front of the coach. They were wrapped in blankets, with hoods over their heads, and armed with shotguns. It flashed upon him that they were robbers. “Look! boys, look!” he shouted. “See what’s coming. Get out your arms. The road agents are upon us.” The eyes of every man in the coach were peering through the loopholes at the approaching bandits. Madison, the first to discover them, was searching for his pistol, when the robbers rode up, and in broken Irish, and assumed tones, with their guns aimed at the coach, yelled, “Up with your hands, every one of you.” This formula, always used, was generally concluded with an abusive epithet. Bill Bunton, who had a part to enact, threw up his hands and in an imploring voice, exclaimed, “For God’s sake, don’t kill me. You are welcome to all my money,—only spare my life.”