Tactics in death of Old West outlaws

This old newspaper article describes how two outlaws in the Old West who ambushed a Wells Fargo stage were soon afterwards ambushed by a security guard who was riding as a ‘passenger’ on the stage.

It’s an unusual story because it reveals that outlaws were sometimes predictable, and Wells Fargo guards were able to take advantage of this predictability.
So really, it reveals the tactics that were sometimes used against outlaws in the Old West.
Quite often we don’t associate tactics in this context, quite often we take the view that most encounters between outlaws and the law* consisted of a straightforward shootout.
However, as the story reveals, Wells Fargo security guards (or detectives as they are called in the story) were intelligent men who were capable of devising tactics to defeat outlaws, as well as challenging them in shootouts.

An ambush tactic that was used to defeat outlaws in the Old West

In what way were the outlaws in this particular case predicable?
They were predicable because after they robbed the stage of its safe and after allowing it to go on its way, they paused on the trail to break the safe open and share its contents.
The Wells Fargo detective was aware that outlaws tended to do this, and after halting the stage headed back up the trail to ambush the outlaws.
*In a strict interpretation of the law, Wells Fargo detectives did not represent the law. However, in this situation – the Old West – there was no law.
The story was published in a local newspaper dated 1895, and the robbery took place in 1877.

Death of Old West outlaws