Does sound like old tale, Where two trails cross. In Montana Treasure State Tales
An interesting old story that has been recorded in the 1950 book by Jean Moore, Treasure State Treasure Tales, sounds much like it might be the loot buried near the Custer Battlefield, mentioned in the story above. An excerpt follows:
Where Two Trails Meet
Only Clue To Gold Cache
[By JEAN MOORE]
It was a lonely Montana Road near the Wyoming border in October, 1888. A stagecoach driver had just congratulated himself on a fourth consecutive run with no mishaps, when four masked bandits slid out from behind a clump of bushes and stopped the stagecoach with the dreaded words, “Stop, everybody out, or we will shoot!”
The bandits apparently knew that stagecoach was loaded with gold, for they informed the driver that they had better find what they were looking for, “or else.”
The driver, looking into the business end of the bandits’ guns, quickly decided his life and those of his passengers were worth more than the gold he was carrying and allowed them to relieve him of a heavy iron box containing approximately $8,500 in gold dust, an amount which would buy much more in those days then its equivalent today.
Although Wells Fargo company hired several men to track down the bandits, they were never apprehended and were believed to have skipped the country.
About two years after the stagecoach holdup, a wounded man staggered into a roadside station calling for help. He was badly wounded, but managed to relate his story to the saloon keeper. He had been, he said, one of the four bandits in the stagecoach robbery in 1888 but had argued over his part of the loot and had been excommunicated from the gang by its leader.
The bandits later regretted not having killed him to keep him from talking and so decided to rectify their mistake. They ran him down, shot him, and left him for dead. The loot, he told the saloon keeper, was buried still in the vicinity of bitter Creek. “It’s where two trails come together and meet in front of….” he said, but died before he could finish his story.
The saloon keeper was certain that the dead man had told him the truth. He found two women’s rings and a man’s gold watch in the lining of the man’s coat. Probably this was a bit of the loot the man had managed to conceal from his former partners and all that he ever was able to collect.
The saloon keeper made several journeys around the vicinity of Bitter Creek hunting for two trails that came together. As he didn’t know just where they were to come together, all trails began to look alike and he finally gave up and returned to his liquor business. He figured that was more dependable, although not nearly as exciting as almost finding a buried treasure.
