Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens.... When I was at home I was in a better place; but travelers must be content.––Shakespeare.

THE STAGECOACH

At frequent intervals throughout the widening West may be seen the relegated ship of the desert standing forlorn, friendless, forsaken. The merciless claws of summer and the icy fangs of winter are loosening the red paint, and the white canvas cover and side curtains are flapping in the winds. The tired tongue, dumb with age and years of use, still tells tales of hardships by the silent eloquence of its multitude of unhealed scars.

This class of carryall was at once unique and supreme. It was the one indispensable link in the endless chain of evolution popular and powerful, the only public agent of the Trail and the plains until the unconquerable initiative of the lord of the world had time to steel a highway with trackage for more rapid transit. What a living link was that old overland stage! To look upon an isolated and abandoned relic of earlier pioneerdom is like standing at the marble monument 110 of some human pivot in the mighty march of man’s progress. Before the bold and bustling railway noisily elbowed its way into the affections of travel and commerce and pushed aside the patient wagon of the nation-builders, the tens of thousands of hurried travelers enjoyed (or endured) the hospitality of its rocking thorough-braces as they, hour by hour, day after day, and night after night, and even week after week in the longer journeys, sat atop or inside this leviathan of the sand-ocean making the most rapid trip possible and under safe guidance.

Could such old hulk tell its story, could that dried-up old tongue but begin to wag again, what tales! First would come those of the men too often overworked and underappreciated, like our modern railmen, the drivers of the stage. These, as the ancient Jehu, were compelled to drive furiously on occasion, in order to keep a cramped schedule or make up for the loss of time brought about by a breakdown, a washout, or some Indian depredation. Few drivers there were who did not love their work. It came to be a saying, “Once a driver, always 111 a driver.” The coach-and-four, or more, with booted and belted man on the throne of the swinging chariot, made every boy envious and created in him a desire to become great some day too. Eagle and Dick, Tom and Rock, Bolly and Bill understood the snap of the whip, or its more wicked crack, as well as they did the tension of the line or the word of the chief charioteer, who, with foot on the long brake-beam, regulated the speed of the often crowded vehicle down the precipitous places which to the novice looked very dangerous. But Jehu is no longer universal king. A Pharaoh who knew him not has heartlessly and definitely usurped some of his places.

In the boot of this old seaworthy craft was hauled many a load of treasure, for the gold-hungry prospector without sextant and chain surveyed the fastnesses of the hills as well as the illimitation of the prairies, and a care-taking government made a way to his camp to send him his mail. Express companies joined their traffic to that of Uncle Sam, and he of the pick and shovel became the lodestone to popular convenience. With many a load of treasure went 112 a man known as a messenger, who sat beside the driver, carrying a sawed-off gun under his coat, ready to meet the gangster or holdup, who so often robbed both stage and passenger.

In the hold of this old coach have ridden governors, statesmen of all grades, men and women, good and better (some bad and worse); here were bridal tours, funeral parties, commercial men and gamblers, miners and prospectors, Chinamen and Indians, pleasure-seekers and labor-hunters, officers and convicts.

is the way Saxe punningly puts it; but more of a leveler was this old coach, for there was of necessity the forceful putting of people of the most heterogeneous character together in the most homogeneous manner as the omnibus (most literal word here), made up its hashy load at the hand and command of the driver, whose word was unappealable law as complete as that 113 of another captain on the high seas. Prodigal, profligate, and pure, maiden or Magdalene, millionaire or Lazarus, all were crowded together as the needs of the hour and the size of the passengers demanded, to sit elbow to elbow, side by side to the journey’s end.

Huddled thus, they traveled unchanged till the stage station was reached; here the horses were exchanged for fresher ones; the wayside inn had its tables of provisions varying and varied as the region traversed. If in the mountains, there were likely to be trout, saddle of deer, steaks of bear; but if through the sands, there was provided bacon or other coarser fare. Usually these crowds were joking and jolly, unless tempered by something requiring more sobriety, but always optimistic, for the fellow who became grouchy the while had generally abundant occasion to repent and mend his ways.

One day, on a road not far from where this is being written, the old coach was toiling up a long mountainside; the driver was drowsy and the passengers had exhausted their newest rÉpertoire of stories 114 and had lapsed into stillness such as often seizes a squeezed crowd. The horses were permitted to take their time; the dust was deep, the sun hot, and all possible stillness prevailed.

“Halt!” ordered a low voice very near the road.

The driver, Tom Myers, did not understand the command, and simply looked up, half asleep, and said to the horses, “Gid-dap!”

“Halt!” came the words again, louder and unmistakable.

Myers halted. Standing at the end of an elongated bunch of pines where he had been invisible until the heads of the horses appeared stood the highwayman, with menacing gun covering the head of the driver.

“Throw out your treasure and mail!” came the command.

“I have mail, but no treasure,” said my friend Tom, as he afterward pointed out the spot and told the story. “Come and get it.”

The lone robber rifled the sacks, turned the pockets of the travelers inside out, and 115 bade them drive on without imitating Lot’s wife; he was never caught.

To be sure, this is a tame story, and many readers doubtless can tell one more thrilling; but this one is true.

The stagecoach is a thing of the past, but we still have the hardy, dust-covered, mud-daubed teamster, who yet must haul the freight far back into hills where for ages there will be no railway. To these, Godspeed and good cheer! They live by the Trails; they eat at the wheel; they sleep under the wagon; they are kindly and obliging even when their heavily belled teams of six to fourteen or more head of horses meet another loaded caravan in some narrow pass where the highest engineering ability is needed to get by in safety; and they never leave a fellow-traveler in distress.