In this unpublished story, written around 1950, Barrowsgate shares a table at a Sacramento restaurant with an elderly gentleman who proceeds to tell him about his early life in and around the goldfields of California and Nevada. Barrowsgate asks the old man if he had ever come across the infamous bandit “Black Bart”, famous for robbing Wells Fargo stagecoaches. The old man certainly knew about Black Bart (in the story, Bart’s real name was “Ed. Coles”) and recounted how Bart had only become a bandit after being cheated out of a goldfield that he had staked a claim for. According to the old man, Black Bart only held up stagecoaches that were leaving the goldfield that he thought was rightfully his, and he never harmed anybody. At the end of the meal, the old man leaves and Barrowsgate hears the waiter say “Goodnight Mr Coles”.
This story is a good example of how Barrowsgate creates a good yarn from a blend of his own experiences and some factual material, slightly altered. Barrowsgate lived for a time, during 1911, in Sacramento and had previously worked in the goldfields of California. Charles Boles was born around 1829 and died in 1888 and joined the Californian Gold Rush in 1849 north east of Sacramento. Between 1875 and 1883, Boles (nicknamed “Black Bart“) proceeded to rob Wells Fargo stagecoaches at least 28 times across northern California. The Black Bart in Barrowsgate’s story is recast as a wronged man, who only steals back the gold he thinks is rightfully his and the “twist” at the end of his story is typical of most of Barrowsgate’s writing (including his verse). The story is clearly fiction, as Black Bart died when Barrowsgate was six.