Stagecoach robbery in the Old West was a risky endeavor. Authorities thwarted, caught or killed most road agents within a few attempts. (The same holds true for bank robbers, then and now.) Had such outlaws approached their “work” more cautiously, they might have avoided prison time (or worse) or at least postponed their day of reckoning. Charles E. “Black Bart” Boles (see related feature, P. 50), the most successful of Western highwaymen, was a true master of his profession, if unworthy of emulation. Had he written a handbook, it might have read like the following.
Study the stagecoach line schedule and, if
