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night of October 22 it was a moot point. When Hannibal saw the bonfire laid across the tracks as No. 349 cleared the grade, he threw the Johnson bar into reverse, signaled his brakemen with three short blasts of his whistle, and commented calmly to his fireman that he figured somebody was up to no kinda good.
    The two guards in the express mail car were on their feet as soon as the train shuddered to a halt. Underneath them, along the entire length of the train, the wheels shot off sparks and screechingly protested the abrupt application of the engine's reverse lever. In anticipation of being boarded from the front, the guards raised their shotguns toward the car's large sliding door. It was an unfortunate assumption. Ben Simpson and Ethan Stone used the regular doors at either end of the car to enter simultaneously and surprise their victims.
    Ethan's Colt .45 was leveled directly at the back of the stockiest of the two guards. His voice was low and even, rough in a whiskey-whispered sort of way. "You'll want to put those shotguns down, gentlemen, and you'll want to do it carefully. I'm not anxious to kill you, but I can't speak for my partner here."
    Behind the kerchief that hid half his face, Ben Simpson bared yellowed teeth in a happy grin. "Can't say that I'm anxious, boys, but I ain't reluctant, if you take my meanin'."
    The guards took his meaning quite well, placing their shotguns on the floor of the mail car and pushing them toward the robbers without ever turning around to face them.
    Kicking the weapons out of the guards' reach, Ethan approached them cautiously. Fairly certain they had relied on their shotguns for protection and carried no pocket revolvers, he motioned Ben to close in. "You wouldn't want anyone to think you made it easy for us, would you?" he asked. He saw both of his victims wince as they anticipated what would come next. Ethan made the blow as sharp and clean as possible, bringing the butt of his Colt down hard on the back of one guard's skull. Ben's man flinched at the last second and had to be clubbed twice before he dropped unconscious to the floor.
    "They're not going anywhere," Ethan said as Ben poked both men with the pointed toe of his boot. From the deep pockets of his coat he pulled out a stick of dynamite. "C'mon. We have work to do."
    In the engineer's cab Hannibal Cage did not go down as easily as the express car guards. He had no intention of resisting the robbers until he was asked for the one thing he couldn't give: No. 349 herself. He fought like the man he was, hard and fair, and he gave as good as he got until Jake Harrity managed to get his gun between their twisting bodies and fire off one shot. When Hannibal slumped to the floor the fireman surrendered his shovel and complied with Jake's order to remove the engineer from the train.
    "You'll never make it down the mountain on your own," the fireman warned Jake as he tended to his friend's grave chest wound. "No. 349 will take you right over the side."
    Above his kerchief Jake's brown eyes raked the blackened and greasy face of the fireman. He shrugged, unconcerned by the railroader's warning. "We got us a man, tallow pot."
    In the caboose, the conductor and two brakemen were easily overpowered by another team of robbers before they could respond to the engineer's whistles. After tying up the brakemen, Happy McCallister and Obie Long began moving forward with the intention of relieving passengers of whatever struck their fancy.
    The Chronicle's poker game proved to be a bonanza. Dave Crookshank thought he was going to be the big winner of the night. He and his fellow staffers took little notice of the train's halting. After three months riding the rails, they considered themselves rather jaded travelers. On the prairies they had witnessed a swarm of locusts that brought the illusion of night to the afternoon sky and stopped their train cold. In the Sierras an avalanche blanketed their cars and kept them stationary for two days.