Dawson, October 1 - Sunday at midnight two masked men appeared suddenly before the two men, Fred Bowers and Milford Halliday, employed as night shift on the Guggenheim hydraulic plant on Lovett Gulch, six miles out of Dawson on Bonanza creek, bound and gagged them and proceeded in a very leisure manner to clean up twenty feet of the head of the big sluice box, working three hours and carrying away with them four sacks of gold and gravel of a value estimated all the way from $12,000 to $20,000. The company had planned to cleanup on Monday and the riffles were known to contain a large amount of gold.
It is believed five men were implicated in the hold-up and robbery although only two, a long and a short man, actually engaged in the holdup. The whole performance took place within two hundred feet of the bunkhouse in which the day crew was sleeping, the latter knowing nothing of what had happened until morning when they found their companions lying on the ground unable to move or speak.
As yet there have been no arrests but vague rumors are numerous concerning the affair. The fact that there had been no clean-up for a week and that one was planned for Monday is believed to have been known to the robbers who took advantage of the situation to act when the riffles were full of gold.
Annual Report of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police for 1913.
Report of Superintendent Moodie
At 6 am. on the 29th September, Mr. C. A. Thomas, resident manager of the Yukon Gold Co., called up the Officer Commanding by telephone and reported that at about 1.15 a.m. two masked men had held up with revolvers the two men working on the hydraulic works belonging to the company on Lovett gulch. After a preliminary investigation by Supt. J. D. Moodie and Sergeant H. G. Maplev, the following information was obtained: The custom is for one man to go to the bunk-house at midnight, prepare supper and have his own, then he relieves his comrade who, in turn, gets his meal. On this night one of the men prepared and got his supper and started to relieve his companion between 12.30 and 12.45. A short distance from the bunk-house he was held up by two masked men, bound, gagged and laid in a ditch near the trail. His companion waited until 1.10 to be relieved, and then thinking
something must be wrong started for the bunk-house. When he got to the transformer house, which was quite near the nozzles, he also was held up. The hold-up men ordered him to turn off the water, and he explained that this would cause the pipes to burst. He was then told to turn the nozzles away so that the water would not run through the sluice boxes. After doing this he was told to walk to the transformer house. On arriving there he was tied up and gagged and some sacks thrown over his head. Both men were inspected by the hold-up men four times at intervals of as nearly as they could judge, about half an hour. The bonds of the first man were examined and made more secure three times. They were told to remain quiet. At length the man who had been bound in the transformer house, not having heard anything for some time, managed to get on his feet and hop with bound ankles, etc., towards the bunk-house when he was released. The man first found had got the gag out of his mouth, and, his cries being heard, he was also released. The rubber boots of one man were taken off his feet, and were found by the police in the cut where the sluice boxes are.
It was found that a quantity of gravel containing the gold and amalgam which, it is estimated, would fill about four gunny sacks, had been taken. Of course the
value of this cannot be stated at this time, but it will run up in the thousands of dollars. The tracks of the robbers were found and traced down the hill and across the tailings to where a buggy had been waiting. Every effort is being made to locate the perpetrators of the crime. Reports will be forwarded from time to time as the case progresses.
