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A tractor grading Tuesday afternoon at Indian Dunes was stopped in its tracks by a relic of the Old West.

The big cat was halted when its blade ran across a rusty old safe. The safe, which was about two and one-half feet square, was hauled to the mechanical yard at Indian Dunes and torched open.

The disappointed workers found nothing inside but sand and rust. Still legible on the door were the words, "Cary Safe Co. Buffalo. NY."

Deputy Jack Barnes noted that there used to be a stagecoach line from Ventura to Castaic Junction and the empty safe may have been the remains from a robbery of long ago.

The safe may also have been washed away in the 1928 flood which followed the collapse of St. Francis Dam in San Francisquito Canyon. The safe could have come from a Newhall Land & Farming Company warehouse at Castaic Junction or another building in the path of that disastrous flood.

It would have been buried in the mud of the riverbed, where it was found Tuesday.

A tow truck lifted the safe and it was hauled to the Santa Clarita Valley sheriff's station.