You might have to look again at the history of the west.
What is interesting is that when people first went “west” that meant California or the coast. Kansas and much of the midwest was truly “fly over country” just like its treated now. They would typically start in St. Louis Missouri, and then later Kansas City, and travel straight across Kansas. This started in around the 1830’s. There were few trading posts along the way so they had to haul everything in those tiny wagons. In fact most people walked the whole way so travel was slow. Its interesting that one can still find the old wagon ruts in the prairies.
But to get back to the OP most trading posts were located by rivers where they could be supplied by steamboat. Later on they did have “freight lines” where these big teams of 8-10 horses would pull enormous wagons full of goods to remote locations. So put together a “train” of 4-5 of these massive wagons, a hundred horses, support riders, and all and you have probably about 50 armed men. On a good trail a wagon train could go about 25-35 miles in a day.
Here in Kansas City a man named Alexander Majors made his fortune running a freight line to Arizona (on the Santa Fe Trail) and the Dakotas. http://www.alexandermajors.com/ Interestingly he was a Christian who expected high morals of his workers. No profane language was to be used around females, no abuse of people or animals, honest dealings in business matters, no work on Sundays, and he gave bibles to his workers.
Keep in mind that in the old west most of the women folk knew how to handle a gun even if they didn’t so often, and a lot of them did often. Women hunted, killed vermin, butchered small animals…
Also, kids started shooting young.
Chances were, if you were an outlaw crossing a farmer’s holding it wasn’t just the farmer you had to worry about. They might not have guns for everybody, but it was a good bet every adult and all the kids past 10 or so knew how to shoot. One bandit would be outnumbered easily on the average farm.
That’s an option. A posse would be organized from the men in the local area.
So, your posse follows him into that county and contacts the locals there, forming up a still bigger posse
There’s also the fact that while gold coins and paper money are easy for a horse-mounted man or men to carry, dry goods and liquor would not be. Assuming that the bandits didn’t hijack a supply wagon for its contents (and take the wagon with them), then they would have go riding out of town carrying a bunch of heavy items on horseback.
You aren’t going too far that way.
Or with a wagon for that matter, as a team of horses would actually be slower (although have more stamina) than a single horse.
And what would you take anyway?
Besides cash, gold coins, firearms, ammunition, and maybe alcohol…what else would there be to take? Medicine was rudimentary back then, so that leaves out drugs. There no electronics and few consumer goods, so that rules those out. You could hunt your own food if you lived rough or rustle the occasional cow if you were starving.
Robbing a country store back in the Old West simply wouldn’t provide enough to a thief to make it worthwhile.
I was asking about robbing the people who were delivering stuff to the store.
even sven’s point that they’re more likely to get robbed on the way back (when they have money) is interesting. I was actually interested in this question in the context of modern day countries that still have this sort of thing going on, so it’s nice to see an answer based on personal experience.
Again, besides cash,gold or ammunition, what exactly would a supply wagon in the Old West have carried which would have been valuable enough, portable enough or useful enough to steal?
People hijacking land shipments of goods is more of a 20th century crime than a 19th. After all, when gas-powered vehicles came along, greater quantities could be carried and thus greater amounts could earned by the resale of stolen merchandise.
*Butch Cassidy: [interrupting] I think they’re in the trees up ahead.
Sundance Kid: In the bushes on the left.
Butch Cassidy: I’m telling you they’re in the trees up ahead.
Sundance Kid: You take the trees, I’ll take the bushes.
Percy Garris: Will you two beginners cut it out?
Butch Cassidy: Well, we’re just trying to spot an ambush, Mr. Garris.
Percy Garris: Morons. I’ve got morons on my team. Nobody is going to rob us going down the mountain. We have got no money going down the mountain. When we have got the money, on the way back, then you can sweat. *
I would assume that quite a number of run-of-the-mill bandits would be in it as a method for survival, rather than as some great money-making scheme. If you’re living in a cave up in the mountains, stopping travellers as they cross the mountain pass, you’d probably be just as, if not more, interested in honey and flour as in money and gold. I’d see people stealing the mail just as entertainment, if they could read.
Banditry is too risky for survival. Get caught, and you are likely to be killed on the spot- perhaps in a horrendously painful way (the go-to in my village was to tear out the finger and toenails first). In cultures that take hospitality towards travelers seriously (and many do), it puts you beyond the pale, and would certainly cut off ties with the rest of the community…and these ties are often what the most desperate people use to survive.
It’s the realm of young men with nothing to lose and unemployed soldiers with limited skills. The desperate pilfer, shoplift and pickpocket, but generally do not commit banditry.