 DATE: Soon after Ben, Pardner, and Mad Jack open their secret "gold  mine" underneath No Name City, a young farmer is recruited to help  dig. To emphasize the need for secrecy, Mad Jack threatens to shove  a stick of dynamite in the farmers mouth if he blabs. The film is  set in 1849 or 1850, before California becomes a state. Dynamite  wasnt yet invented (it was patented by Alfred Nobel in 1867).