CALIFORNIA COMES

Just when everybody had about concluded that the untrammeled West had settled down to a humdrum existence, news comes from Nevada City, California, that the mail stage has been robbed. To be sure, the vehicle was an automobile, instead of the traditional coach and four horses, and the highwaymen leaped from the bushes instead of galloping up on bronchos, but it demonstrates that the tradition of personal initiative is still alive.

The two robbers, obviously a ringleader and his confederate, must have grown tired of twirling their sombreros on a moving picture set, and rushed forth to prove that the West is still a place where the male population is as advertised. Some reports describe the men as escaped convicts from San Quentin Prison, but nobody will believe that. They quite plainly are re-incarnations of the spirit of the James boys, who have set out to recoup their fortunes in the only time-honored and accepted Western method. Easterners travelling in the West have long been under the impression that the only custodians of the Jesse James tradition were the hotel-keepers, but they must now be undeceived.