Part 48 (2/2)

Leaving Omaha that same afternoon at four o'clock, the return trip was commenced and kept up until Boone was reached at nine o'clock Sat.u.r.day morning. As Mr. Reiner had previously driven stage he was nearly always found upon the seat with the driver. Thus he was exposed the same as the driver was. Through all kinds of weather, the blizzards of winter and stifling heat of the summer, these trips were made with greatest regularity. Gradually, however, the railroad was worked farther and farther westward, and the stage driver's route shortened accordingly.

During this period of his life Mr. Reiner had many trying and sometimes exciting experiences. Although he is modest about relating them, those which he told a reporter ill.u.s.trate what the messengers of that period had to contend with.

”I remember one time,” said Mr. Reiner, ”it was in the spring of the year and the roads were in terrible condition. From Panora to Boone there was one slough after another. We were driving along one night. I was on the box with the driver, when we came to a wide slough. There were tracks where others had driven through, but of course, we could not go across in the same place for fear of cutting through. But the slough looked all right, so we started in a new place. We had got into the center when suddenly the wheels cut through the sod and the stage sank into the water-soaked ground clear up to the axles. The four horses began floundering around in a most dangerous manner. Both the driver and I jumped from our seats down into the mud and water, and as soon as possible unhitched the horses.

”There we were, stuck in the middle of the slough with nine pa.s.sengers on the inside of the coach, one of them a woman. They, of course, had been aroused by the disturbance, and now called loudly to know what they should do. There was but one thing that could be done, and that was to get out and wade to sh.o.r.e. This they did, one of the gentlemen carrying the woman on his shoulders. They were told that if they would follow the road for three miles they could find lodging for the night.

A spring snow was on the ground, and the air was cold, but they started on their way. The driver, capturing one of the horses, jumped on it and rode for help.

”I was left there alone. In the stage coach was my express containing some very valuable property which I did not dare to leave under any circ.u.mstances. There was but one thing for me to do, and that was to wade back to the stage coach and climb in and stay there until help should arrive. This I did. I wrapped myself in my buffalo robe which was the best I could do, but it was far from comfortable.

”In the morning help came and we were pulled out of the mud hole. A fresh set of horses was. .h.i.tched to the stage and we were soon at the next stop. Here we met all the pa.s.sengers. They had had good beds to sleep in and warm breakfasts, so were anxious to be off. I hastily swallowed a cup of coffee, and still in my wet clothes, climbed up on the box seat, and rode all that day and the next night without a rest.

This was but one of the experiences which were familiar to stage drivers and express messengers of that time.”

Although during his twenty-five years of service for the American Express company Mr. Reiner never lost a penny which had been placed in his charge, it was not because he did not have his opportunities to do so.

”There was one experience,” he remarked, ”that I remember well, and which came as near being a hold-up as I ever had. It was the same week that an additional express messenger had been put on the route between Boone and Omaha, and our routes had been altered accordingly. The stage left Boone on a Monday afternoon and was in the neighborhood of Denison. It was a bright night and the horses were jogging along at a good gait.

”Suddenly ahead the driver saw two men crouched by the roadside. As we drew near they both sprang out into the road and began firing at us rapidly. One of the first shots struck and killed the rear horse on the left hand side. The other three animals sprang forward with such force that they fairly jerked the harness off from the animal which had been shot. They circled to the right and the wheels of the coach ran over the fallen animal. The animals continued their circling until they completely reversed the coach, then they turned and ran down the road along which we had just come. It was always believed that the highwaymen did not know of this change, and thought the stage carried express as before. But the fact was I had left Boone on Monday instead of Tuesday.

”The driver, according to the story he told me afterwards, was cussed most roundly for not stopping the team, but he insisted that the shooting the robbers had done so frightened the horses that they had become unmanageable. Although the highwaymen were far from satisfied with the explanation they made the best of a bad matter, and began to search the driver to see what they could find. He gave them his pocketbook, which, he said, contained forty dollars. That, by the way, is more money than I ever saw him have at one time, and considerably more than stage drivers usually carried. The hold-up men took the money and gave the pocketbook back to him, as it contained some papers he wished to save and which were of no value to the robbers.

”Soon after this incident, while going over my route one cold night the driver stopped the team and called to me. I sat in a seat on the inside with my revolvers lying beside me. Getting out of the door, the driver told me there was a man crouched down in the road ahead of us. We were out on the prairie some miles from a station. I went forward, with no feeling of pleasure, to investigate. The man came forward also and I recognized him as a fellow who had been lying around one of the stations for several days. I asked him what he wanted and he replied that he wished to get in and ride for a ways. Although the night was cold I could not let him in for fear that he had companions farther up the road and was only getting inside to get the lay of the land. The express was unusually valuable that night. The fellow ran along behind the coach for some time, but the horses gradually outdistanced him, and that was the last we ever saw of him.”

After the completion of the railroad, Mr. Reiner was given a position as express messenger on one of the trains. ”Many times,” said the veteran express messenger, ”I have literally had the car floor paved with gold and silver, over which I walked in doing my work. We had carried lots of gold and silver bars east from Virginia City, in Nevada. In order that, the weight should be evenly distributed the bars were spread like paving bricks all over the car floor. The following description, written by a reporter from one of the Council Bluffs papers while Mr. Reiner was yet at Boone, gives a description of the work of carrying the bullion:

”While viewing the scenes at the transfer yesterday afternoon, we boarded W. F. Reiner's Northwestern express car and beheld a scene that caused our hump of inquisitiveness to jump. Mr. Reiner is a messenger of the American Merchants Union Express company, and will have served in his present position and on his present route seven years in November next. He lives in Boone. On the floor of his car were sixty-seven gold and silver bricks. That is, each brick was composed of gold and silver in compound. In some of them, silver predominated--in value. They resemble silver almost entirely in color. They are of somewhat irregular sizes, though nearly every one of them weighs more than one hundred pounds. Some of them were much more refined than the others. The amount of gold and silver in each one is stamped on the face or top, in different lines, and the total value of the brick is added in a third line. The value of each metal is marked, even to a cent. How those values can be so accurately determined in a compound brick is beyond our knowledge. Fifty-seven of those bricks which we yesterday saw, were worth $101,950.80. The remaining eleven were worth $15,077.57. They were mostly from Virginia City and are being taken to New York. Mr. Reiner informed us also that these bricks are carried only by the Northwestern and Rock Island roads. On some days he has had as many as 160 of them in his car. They are taken east nearly every day.”

For ten years Mr. Reiner lived in Boone, then a redivision of the road brought him back to this city. For the next fifteen years he continued to run out of this city and do active service. Thirteen years ago the terrible strain he had undergone in the earlier years of service for the company began to tell upon him and he broke down in health. Then, if a private company ever did a good and wise thing, the American Express company did it. They said they realized the value that Mr.

Reiner had been to them when they were getting established in Iowa and running their route through to Omaha, and they would not forget his efficient services now that he was getting old.

CHAPTER XXVIII

_Linn County Libraries_

THE IOWA MASONIC LIBRARY

BY HELEN R. DONNAN

The Iowa Masonic Library, ”unique in idea and unapproachable in scope,”

is an inst.i.tution of which Cedar Rapids is proud, and to which the Masons of Iowa point as a satisfactory answer to those who would question the purposes of the fraternity.

As early as 1844 the late T. S. Parvin, grand secretary and librarian of the Grand Lodge of Iowa, A. F. & A. M., from its organization until his death in 1901, began the collection of books which today is world famous. With rare discernment and infinite patience this vast wealth of treasures has been gathered together and placed at the disposal of all students.

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