'ELEANOR WEBBER' (Con't) She Wanted A Husband. He Wanted Gold! --------------------------------------------------------------------- The next morning she was up bright and early. "Please, she said to her hostess, "I must return home." The woman shook her head, feeling sad for the young woman who had traveled so far for such a wedding. "Perhaps you were wrong," she said. "No, I knew him all right. Besides, if he wasn't the same man, why did he run off?" The woman could not answer that. It was a few moments before Eleanor could speak. "Now," she said finally, her composure returning, "I shall book passage on the next stage." Her shoulders straight, her eyes red with humiliation and heartbreak, Eleanor left Grass Valley forever. The day after the robbery, Wells Fargo detective Jim Hume was already on the trail of the Dreibelbis gang. He arrested Charles Thompson, an accomplice in the crime, who immediately told all. Not only had they robbed the Colfax stage, they had also robbed the Downieville stage earlier. The following month, Hume got another tip. This time it was reported that a man fitting the description of the stage robber was living in a hotel in Coloma. He was "Well-fixed," said the informant, but always sad. He bought shoes for some of the barefoot youngsters of the town, and had lately taken to drowning his sorrows in the nearest saloon. The man, now calling himself Walker, had given his landlady a small gold bar and several hundred dollars for safekeeping. He told her that he had been a mine superintendent at the St. Patrick Mine in Placer County and had left well-fixed. The detective checked with the mine and, finding no record of a superintendent named Walker, he left immediately for Coloma. He persuaded the landlady to show him the gold bar and the other coins. He discovered that many of the gold coins were bent and smoke-blackened. Obviously they were the survivors of a recent explosion. Hume obviously they were the survivors of a recent explosion. Hume easily found Walker in a saloon. But Walker was so badly disturbed that the detective placed him in the care of a local doctor before sending him to jail. After he recovered, Hume questioned him, and learned that he was Louis Dreibelbis, the bridegroom of Eleanor Webber. He had been well educated in the Midwest and had come to California to seek his fortune. Failing to do this, he had drifted into a life of robbing stagecoaches. "If I give you a full confession, will you help me?" he asked the detective "I can promise you nothing," Hume replied. "But we will be fair." "Yes, I suppose you will be. And I should have known better anyway. Robbery was no solution." Louis told him about the crimes and mentioned the names of the others involved. The detective telegraphed the Grass Valley sheriff. Together they sought out the other four accomplices: a saloon-keeper, a miner, and two ne er-do-wells. They went directly to the mine to find the suspected miner, Nat Stover. The superintendent found it hard to believe, stating, "Why, Nat is the most dependable man I have." "We just wanted to question him," Hume pushed, "and take a look around his cabin." "Okay, but I think you have made a mistake." The superintendent went outside and pointed up the hillside. "He lives up there with some gal." Together, Hume and the superintendent moved toward the darkened cabin. When the door finally opened, a large, savage dog broke into fierce barking, but Nat Stover pulled him back. "Get your shirt on," Hume told Stover. "We're taking you in for stage robbery." Stover was silent but his girlfriend leaped out of bed and ran toward Nat, flinging her arms about him. "You can't arrest him. He's done nothing wrong " Hume, ignoring the young woman, went over to the bed, shaking out the pillows and tossing the blankets back. "So, he said, "you're only a miner. Then why do you have this loaded six-shooter?" The superintendent stood back, surprised at this turn of events. The Grass Valley sheriff appeared and Nat Stover was taken down the hill, handcuffed to the wagon, and led off to jail. Like Louis, he talked, telling the detective that the saloonkeeper's share of the money was buried under a log in a nearby ravine. The next day Stover took him to the location, but the officers found that the treasure was already gone. Being a diligent detective, Hume and the sheriff went to the saloonkeeper and convinced him it was all over. They had enough evidence from the other two to convict him also. In short order three of the four robbers were behind bars. The fourth man was later traced to Virginia City, arrested, and returned to California to stand trial. In the end all four men went to prison. But what of the wayward bridegroom, Louis Dreibelbis? According to the newspaper, "He was the prettiest, most obliging witness ever put on the stand." And the fact that he had told all, revealing names and places, secured him his freedom. "Well, I hope you learned your lesson," Detective Hume said to Dreibelbis. Robbing stagecoaches is no way to make a living." Louis nodded his head sadly. "It cost me a lot," he said. "Including the nicest girl I'll ever know -- my wife." Like thousands of others who came to California during the Gold Rush ear to seek their fortunes, Eleanor Webber and Louis Dreibelbis were not successful Eleanor returned to her home a bit wiser, perhaps, but brokenhearted. As for Louis, unlike other stagecoach robbers, his life of crime was short-lived and his punishment was the ache of his own heart. To Be Continued. . . .Donaldina Cameron........... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert October 1, 2005 iggy29@rnetinc.net 'A Closed Mouth Gathers No Foot.'