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ly a bit of doggerel verse, written in a firm, cultivated hand, properly spelled and punctuated. And signed "Black Bart, the P08." That was the-scene and the action, late In 1877, of the first of the most daring series of single-handed hold ups in the whole hiBtory of the "wild west." I write "single-handed" advisedly for express detectives and post- office inspectors, seeking clews, dis covered that the figures In the chap arral the "boys" who were ordered not to shoot were Just sticks draped with Jute bagging and topped with, slouch hats. Perfectly good bandits, though, in the mountain twilight! "All criminals are cowards" is a police maxim. Rare is the thief who dares to rob alone rarer yet one who robs unarmed. But there was a thief who robbed alone whose only weapon was a pair of field glasses! Twenty-three times in the next six years "Black Bart" lined up his dummy "boys" in the chaparral in the Siskiyou mountains, on the Ore gon trail, back in his earlier haunt in the Sierras. AlvCays scrupulously polite to the ladies, not once offering violence, always leaving his "card a scrap of doggerel signed "Black Bart the po8." His express robberies netted him tens of thousands nobody knows what treasure he got from the mails. Rewards for his capture were un claimed. He was a bandit more cun ning than the thief-takers. Only once was a driver able to describe him an American, about 50 years old, with long gray hair, thin face, deep-set eyes, prominent teeth and dignified bearing. His language in dicated education and good breeding. Caution and courage go hand-in-hand and "Black Bart" was caution personified. With his field glass he would watch a stage for hours no difficult task in a mountain country until certain none of the passen gers' were armed. Then the quick , ambush, the rifled "box" and always the disappearance without a trace always until the laBt time. Accident catches more-crooks than all the detectives! On Nov. 3, 1883, it was accident that a boy of the neighborhood rode on the box with McConnell, driver of the Yosemite mail stage, between Milton and Sonora. An accident, too, that the boy had a gun. Near Sonora the boy dropped off. A few minutes later "Black Bart" cried "Hands up!" "Where is the fellow with the gun?" he asked McConnell. The driver explained as "Black Bart" started off with, his booty $4,400 gold in the express and mail sacks, $550 in coin from the passengers. But accident again the boy came back! McConnell grabbed the rifle and fired four shots at the retreating bandit. Next day detectives found, beside -a camp fire, a blood-stained cuff and on the cuff were laundry marks! Here was the first real clew. They searched thp laundries of every Cali fornia city, and so, at last, they found "Black Bart the po8." A quiet, In offensive man, E. C. Bolton, living in an unpretentious San Francisco boarding house. A "mining man" so he explained his frequent ab sences. Identified as "Black Bart" he confessed the last robbery, but de nied the others. TWO BLACK BART P08 But when Bolton went to San Quentin "Black Bart the po8" ceased to rob! Born at Decatur, 111., he had served with gallantry in the civil war. His mates in the 160th Illinois regiment knew him as "Whistling Charlie." A teetotaler, well educated, a good "mixer," an entertaining story teller able to earn more than a good liv ing In any honest work, the motives that drove him to robbery are still his own mystery. No other crimes were ever traced to him and after