Part 2 — ON THE MISTY MOUNTAIN.

ROUTE I.

It was in the by-gone days of the Misty Mountain Stage and Express Company—only a few years ago by actual chronological computation, it is true; but at least a half a century by the change effected in the less than demi-decade which has passed.

Do you know that at times, when I contemplate this change, I can scarcely realize that I have lived long enough to have lived through it? I often feel as if the memory of the things that were is the reflection of experiences in a former state of existence, so different is the what is from the what was. I feel burdened by great personal antiquity, and cannot help considering myself a sort of Methusalem le Petit. I have seen the great plains spanned by the rail and the wire. The smoking, shrieking steed of steam drinks the waters of the fork of the Misty Mountain, sacred but a year or two ago to the pony of the red man. The journey which occupied weeks to accomplish ten years past is now made in a few hours, and lightning whispers are interchanged between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

My good old Uncle Joe, an old-time leather-dealer in the “Swamp” in New York City—who, a bachelor, had adopted me, an orphan, and, having educated me, had assigned me a desk in the dingy old office with the leathery smell—told me one day, without any previous warning, that he wished me to start without delay for the Stony Sierra to look after some of his business interests in that region. That was my Uncle Joe’s way of doing things. His engagements did not permit his leaving New York at the time. Besides, he had crossed the great plains more than twice or thrice, and had had enough of them. But as I had not had any of them, a little, he thought, would do me good, and he proposed to give it me.

My journey to the (then) end of railroad communication was remarkable only for the general railway decadence which, commencing at Chicago, increased “in inverse ratio to the square of the distance from our objective point,” as the elegant English of the telegraph would phrase it. The conductor grew familiar with the passengers, who grew fewer. The various characters of the “newspaper boy,” the vegetable-ivory notion vender, the “ice-cold lemonade” boy, the candy-seller, the cigar boy, the bookseller, the apple and orange boy, were all performed by one and the same protean youngster. The passengers had dwindled so that it would not pay to invest two boys in that dramatic business. At length, the Thespian youth, tired of playing a dozen different characters to empty cars, threw off all his disguises at once, and subsided into a mere passenger like the rest of us.

A sudden shock brought a slight nap in which I was indulging to a timely end. The train had stopped. The pitiful account of passengers were on their feet, some leaving the car, others looking about them with an expression of interrogative imbecility, when the brakeman shouted out:

“Devil’s Landing—end o’ track!”

No danger of taking a wrong train now. So we passengers, four in number, left the car. We concluded a hasty agreement to stick to each other as fellow-men and fellow-passengers, we four waifs washed on the shore of barbarism by the advancing tide of civilization. A fellow-feeling of lost-sheepiness made us wondrous kind to each other.

I accosted a small, dried-up, hard-featured old fellow of eighteen or nineteen:

“Any hotels here?”

Answer (in an intensely contemptuous manner): “No!”

“Any restaurants—eating-houses?”

“Yes, four on ’em: the ’Merik’n House, the Mansh’n House, the Pacific S’loon, and Jack Langford’s dug-out.”

Finding the old juvenile so communicative, and having more questions to propound, we propitiate him by offering a cigar in recognition of his social and chronological equality, and in proof that we are not “stuck-up snobs from the East.” He takes the cigar brusquely without oral signification of acceptance or expression of thanks. He bites the end off wolfishly, and places the cigar as near his ear as possible. We offer him a match. He takes it, puts it into his vest-pocket, saying:

“Guess I’ll take a dry smoke.”

“Which is the best of the hotels or eating-houses?”

“All doggoned bad.”

“Which is the cleanest?”

“All doggoned dirty.”

“Which is the cheapest?”

“All doggoned dear.”

“Which is the quietest?”

“Doggoned row goin’ on in all of ’em most o’ the time. Man killed at some one on ’em ’most every night, and a brace or more on dance-nights.”

We requested him to direct us to the “American” or the “Mansion House.”

“Don’t need to go far. That,” said he, indicating by a movement of his cigar and his lower jaw a partially finished “balloon-frame” house about thirty yards to the right, “is the ’Merik’n; and that,” indicating in like manner a canvas shed to the left, “is the Mansh’n House.”

Devil’s Landing consisted of about a dozen mushroom edifices and about as many “dug-outs.” On reflection, we concluded to try the “American House.”

A small space cut off by an unpainted counter served for an office, but no “register” was displayed. The establishment had only very recently been moved up, the official behind the counter informed us, from the last resting-place by the way of runners with the rails.

A look at the “sleeping apartments” was sufficient for me. I determined not to sleep in any of them if I could possibly help it.

I went back to the functionary at the counter, and asked the time of departure of the Misty Mountain coach, and learned that a coach left the same afternoon, and that there was one place vacant. I engaged the seat at once, glad to escape the horrors of a night in the American House and Devil’s Landing. My fellow-passengers wished me to wait for the next day’s coach, but I declined. When we agreed to stick together, I knew nothing of the American House.

We had dinner. It consisted of very fat and very rusty bacon, putty biscuits, and mud coffee without milk.

“The cows have not come in,” said one of the greasy waiters, when I asked for milk.

“The cows never do come home here,” whispered a neighbor, evidently an habitué.

It was toward the close of August, and the heat was excessive. The sun shone mercilessly on us through the partially glazed and wholly uncurtained windows. Yet we ate and perspired, and perspired and drank mud coffee, with a persistency which astonished me when after thinking on these matters.

The flies were terrible. They swept around the room in buzzing clouds. Some of them were nearly large enough to offer a fair mark for a shot-gun; the smaller ones insinuated themselves everywhere—into your nose, ears, eyes—aye, even into your mouth. They immolated themselves in the frowzy, oily butter; and their remains studded the reeking mass like currants in a pudding.

Such a wonderful effect has the pure prairie air—it doth so whet the edge of appetite—that, though our eyes were shocked, we ate and ate, and our sense of taste was not offended. The meal only cost us two dollars apiece.

After dinner, I lit a fifty-cent Devil’s Landing cigar, and walked (literally) around town—a perambulation which did not quite occupy five minutes. As I finished my walk, a shot was fired at the other end of town—that is, within fifteen or twenty rods. Other shots followed. A long-haired, slouched-hatted, and red-legginged individual dashed past on a pretty good horse. Evidently he was the mark at which the firing was directed. As he passed, an armed man or two rushed out of every house and shot at him. The proprietor of the Oriental Saloon came forth, armed with a Henry rifle, and deliberately blazed away at the long-haired fugitive. The latter, finding bullets in front of him, bullets to left of him, bullets behind him, after several miraculous escapes from close shots, had no course open but to turn to right of him, around the corner of the American House, which would afford him some cover. But just as he turned, his horse was hit in the off fore-leg and brought to in a moment. Immediately he was hemmed in by the muzzles of twenty repeating-rifles. He had emptied his six-shooter. Flight was impossible. There was no course but surrender—not even suicide—left. He jumped from his horse, and sat down cross-legged on the ground. He was quickly seized and pinioned. His horse was taken in charge by a citizen. No words were wasted on either side. His lariat of horse-hair furnished a deadly loop, which was placed around his neck. He was marched about a mile to the only tree in sight—an old cottonwood.

While the crowd was going to the tree, the clerk of the American House told me in a few words the history of the long-haired victim. He was a half-breed Choctaw, frequently employed as a scout by the government. There were several of these scouts in the region. They called themselves “wolves,” and prided themselves on their destruction of human life. When any of them came into town citizens were sure to be shot at. Their favorite way of leaving town was, having first filled themselves with “fighting whiskey,” to dash through at full speed, discharging their revolvers at anything human that chanced to appear in their path. The citizens had determined not to stand this sort of thing any longer. “Johnny Henshaw”—so our “wolf” was called—had been drinking rather freely of late. He had declared his intention of shooting three prominent men of the town, mentioning them by name. Hence the measures about to be taken.

Johnny Henshaw seemed to be about twenty years old—indeed rather under than over that age. There was nothing in his features to show a trace of Indian blood. His hair was light brown, his eyes a soft, light blue, his skin fair, and his cheeks rosy. The expression of his face was gentle and pleasing. It made me heart-sick to look at the young fellow, even though he was a wolf and deserved a wolf’s fate, and to think that in the midst of health and strength and youth he was marching to a speedy death. As we came near the fatal tree, I tried to imagine what thoughts were passing in the outlaw’s mind by mentally putting myself in his place. The effort made me dizzy and sick. I felt as if I were about to fall senseless.

When we had reached the cottonwood tree, the cortége halted. A wagon was hauled up to the tree, and Johnny caused to mount it. One end of his lariat was made fast to a branch of the tree. Three or four men jumped on the wagon. Some confusion occurred in properly adjusting the noose about the victim’s neck. Johnny pushed the men from him, saying:

“Get out o’ here! I’ll show ye how a man can die!” And, fixing with his own hands the noose about his neck, he jumped into eternity!

ROUTE II.

Poor wolf! His time to howl was over.

I felt sick and faint from witnessing the scene, and had to take some of the “fighting whiskey” of Devil’s Landing to keep me from fainting. It did so. It was as good—or as bad—as a galvanic shock. I was glad, therefore, when the Misty Mountain coach drove in front of the American Hotel to take up its passengers. The stage had seven inside: a congressman, a divine, an Indian agent, three ladies, and a small boy. The gentlemen looked at me in such a dog-in-the-mangerish fashion when I popped my head in at the door to see what prospect there was of an inside seat, that I immediately withdrew it and took my seat on the box between the driver and the conductor.

“Passengers for the Stony Sierra! All aboard!” And off we go behind six good mules.

The country we travelled through was flat and uninteresting. Not a tree or shrub within the circular boundary of the horizon. Little of life, animal or vegetable, to be seen; only a stray hare—vulgo, jackass rabbit—a prairie-dog, with its sentinel owl, a prairie wolf or coyote, and an occasional hawk.

After a run of nine or ten miles, we stopped at a “dug-out” to change animals. While the change was being effected, a man in a red buggy with a white horse arrived from the west. He was evidently excited, and his horse was covered with foam.

“How d’e do, general? You seem kinder flurried. Anything happened?” asked the stage-driver.

“Well,” said the person addressed as “general” (by the way, you could have bought generals there as they buy hobnails) “I have had a pretty sharp run. Ten or fifteen Indians began running me after crossing the Blue Fork. They fired three or four shots at me. Here’s the mark of one,” he continued, pointing to a bullet-hole in the body of the red buggy. “They came mighty near getting me. And they would have got me were it not for Old Whity here.” And he patted the white horse affectionately.

Thus the Indian Question, at the very outset, was brought home to the bosoms of the passengers by the Misty Mountain coach. They asked many questions of the “general.” The Indian agent—who had never seen an Indian of the wild tribes in his life—made a pretence of experience, and offered a few suggestions. But a few remarks from the stock-tenders at the dug-out stable raised a laugh at his expense, and he “was squelched for the rest of the trip,” as the conductor expressed it.

The conductor and the driver looked to their Henry rifles, and hurriedly inventoried the arms in the party. The Indian agent had a double-barrelled shot-gun—both barrels unloaded—no ammunition; the congressman had a diminutive five-shooter which would scarcely have tickled a papoose—five barrels unloaded, one round of cartridges on hand, no reserve ammunition; the divine, the ladies, and the small boy were unarmed; the reader’s humble servant had one six-shooter—Colt’s navy pattern—with half-a-dozen rounds of ammunition for the same. This weapon he had never yet used. He was not fully enlightened as to the modus of loading it. It was in the reader’s humble servant’s trunk at the bottom of the pile of baggage which towered behind the coach. Of course, he didn’t wish to give the conductor or the driver the trouble of changing the luggage. With remarkable good nature, he preferred going out defenceless to troubling these gentlemen. Like most human feelings, however, this one was perhaps not quite pure. It must be owned the idea crossed his mind that it was as well not to introduce the factor of premature explosion into the quantity of danger to which he was about to be exposed.

We changed mules and started. Everybody saw Indians for the first few miles. But the objects appearing as Indians to our excited vision had been so often pronounced by the conductor to be “soap-weeds,” “old buffalo carcasses,” etc., that the number seen began greatly to diminish. Once we thought there was no doubt about it. They came dashing along in “Indian file,” fifteen or twenty in number, directly toward us. I felt “very queer.” Here were Indians now, not a doubt about it. I was seized by a sudden desire to have something to shoot with. I mentally resolved, if I got out of this scrape alive, never again to travel unarmed in an Indian country.

“Antelope,” remarked the conductor.

Antelope it was; a herd of fifteen or twenty. They crossed the road a few hundred yards in front of us.

We had travelled about five miles without an incident or a sight to break the monotony of the waste around us, when above a rising ground before us the Stars and Stripes, relieved against the sky, gladdened our eyes. How that sight revived us! We remembered that “the home of the brave” was our home; and I think that, if Indians had appeared at that moment, or within five minutes thereafter, we would have received them in heroic attitudes. But they did not appear.

As we ascended the ridge between us and Fort Jones, that post came gradually into view. It looked to us like a collection of very miserable “shanties” dropped down haphazard on the prairie.

A large stone building—the hospital, the conductor informed me—was in course of erection. It seemed larger than all the rest of the post put together. The officers’ quarters were such constructions as we have seen inhabited by the squatters on the vacant lots up-town in New York or in “Jackson’s Hollow” in Brooklyn.

The “Fort” disappointed me very much. I expected to enter the guarded precincts over a drawbridge and under an arched portcullis. But Fort Jones was destitute of ditch, rampart, or parapet, and uninclosed by stockade, palisade, or even by a common board fence. The coach drove up to the sutler’s store—there the post-office was established—without let or hindrance from warder or sentinel.

Some half-dozen officers were in the store awaiting the distribution of the mail. The congressman, the Indian agent, and the divine soon discovered who was the officer in command of the fort. They immediately approached him on the subject of an escort.

The officer said he had comparatively few men; his small force was scattered along the stage-road for two hundred miles; he had only twenty men present for duty; but he would try to furnish three or four men. “An officer and a sergeant,” he said, “were going up on the coach to see to the defences of the station-guards along the road.” The conductor here put in his oar, and said it would be impossible for him to take four men more. This settled the question of an escort. The congressman, the divine, and the Indian agent, having ascertained that they could be accommodated with bed and board at the sutler’s, concluded “to stay over for the present.”

The conductor and the driver did not seem to regret this determination. The former remarked that this lightening of our load helped us much, and we should now be able “to pull through” in good time.

While we were waiting to have the mail made up, a mounted man came in at full speed with news that a government wagon train had been attacked by Indians on one of the roads leading to the post—that the teams were very much scattered—that some of the mules were already in the hands of the Indians. This caused a flutter among the officers. A company of infantry was ordered at once to the relief of the train.

As we left the fort we could see the infantry going over the rise at a double-quick and in skirmish order.

We stopped for a moment, in rear of the officers’ quarters, to take up the officer and the sergeant. The officer’s wife and little child came out to see him off. He kissed them both affectionately, and took his seat with us on top of the coach. The sergeant, also, rode on the roof. Both were well armed. Much to my delight, the officer, finding me unarmed, furnished me with a spare musket he had brought with him.

At first, I was rather disappointed in this officer. He was very plainly dressed. He had just enough gold lace about him to indicate his rank, and no more. I had supposed that regular officers always wore epaulets and white kid gloves. However, the lieutenant—for such was our new passenger’s rank—was evidently a gentleman. He had a certain quiet, unobtrusive affability which charmed me very much. I was glad he had come. His easy self-possession inspired me with confidence.

“If we meet any Indians, lieutenant,” said the conductor, an old hand who had driven stage for ten years along the Great Sandy, “we’ll have to do the work from out here; there’s nobody below (pointing downwards) to help us.”

“Do you think we may be attacked by Indians?” I ventured to ask.

“Think it most probable we shall see some, at the least,” answered the officer. “They have shown themselves at several points along the line. The Great Alamos, which we have to pass, is a favorite crossing-place, when they go south in the spring or north in the fall.”

“It is about as bad a place for Injuns as there is in the whole route,” said the conductor.

“Yes,” said George, the driver; “and though I’m a white man, an’ agin an Injun all the time, I must say that we owe the badness of that there place to a white man.”

“How?” I asked.

“The Great Alamos,” answered the driver, “was a great buryin’-place of the Flat Noses. It was quite a large grove once—considerable of a rarity on these here plains. You know,” he continued, “that the Flat Noses bury their dead high up in the trees, or, where there are no trees, stick ’em up on trestles made with long poles.”

“They bury them in the air instead of in the ground,” I said, intending the remark as a sort of semi-joke, at which I designed smiling if any one else smiled, and, if not, to let it go for a serious observation. It was probably not new in either phase to my companions, who took no notice of it. So to break silence, I asked why the Indians of the plains sought these elevated resting-places for their dead.

“To keep ’em from being eaten up by the ki-o-tees.”

“Do the ki-o-tees devour the dead of other tribes?” I asked, horrified at the thought.

“The ki-o-tees is the wolves,” the conductor explained.

The lieutenant informed me of the orthography of the word—coyote.

About sunset we reached a house built of loose stones, and therefore known as “The Stone Ranch.” There were fifteen or twenty men about the ranch—all of them armed.

George pulled up before the door—there was only one, by the bye, and no windows—and exchanged a friendly greeting with Jake, Ike, Ed, et hoc genus omne.

“What’s the word?” asked George. “How is hay-cutting comin’ on?”

“We ain’t cut a blade of hay to-day,” said one of the men. “Them cussed Injuns kep’ us corralled here all day.”

“Whew!” whistled George.

“How many were they?” the lieutenant inquired.

“Somewhere’s about thirty or forty.”

“Many guns among ’em?” asked the conductor.

“Some of ’em had rifles; all of ’em as I seen had six-shooters.”

“How long did they remain about?”

“Pretty nigh all day. They kep’ shootin’ at us at long range, and we returnin’ their fire, until about ten minnits before the coach kem.”

“Did yer git any on ’em?”

“Jake thinks as he hit one, and Mac says he saw another fall sure.”

“Well! we must be goin’. Git-e-p!”

“Keep yer eye skinned, George.”

“Hold on to that old skelp o’ yourn!”

“You bet! I’ll freeze to it.”

A mile further on we reached the Great Alamos. Darkness was overcoming the twilight as we struck a deep sandy hollow which extended for five or six miles. A slow walk was the only gait possible here. The road for miles ran close under a ridge about twenty feet in perpendicular height. It seemed to me about as bad an “Indian place” as it was possible to find. My Indian weakness came on again as in the morning. The snail-like pace at which we were compelled to move was almost intolerable. There is some sensation of security, or, rather, some suggestion of escape, in a fast gait when danger is impending. Its source is probably the initial instinct of the human breast when danger first threatens—to run from it.

I consulted my companion, the lieutenant, on the possibilities or probabilities of an attack.

“An attack,” he answered, “is possible. It is very probable that there are Indians watching us now. They may fire into us at any moment, as in our position they have the chance of hurting us without being exposed to hurt themselves; for your Indian always runs from a fair fight. He is only ‘brave’ when he has his enemy at a disadvantage, and sees, or thinks he sees, what is called out here ‘a sure thing.’ It is only their very recent presence, however, that causes me to apprehend trouble, as ordinarily they do not attack at night, and they rarely attack a stage-coach: for the reason that they are sure to get a pretty tough fight. Even if successful, their gain is very small; three or four mules at most, perhaps a gun or two. They do not consider the investment a paying one, as a general thing. In any event,” he concluded, “if I were you, I should take off that white duster. It offers quite a shining mark for them, if they feel like shooting.”

The rapidity with which I followed this friend’s advice must have given him a pleasing proof of my confidence in his counsels.

We had now entered the bed of the Great Alamos. It was quite dark. Silence fell upon us. Every man held his loaded rifle, full-cocked, and finger on trigger—peering into the darkness, and seeking in every sage-bush an Indian contour. Every now and then the conductor’s rifle went up and down with a nervous twitch.

The evening had become quite cold. I had felt it keenly before we reached the Stone Ranch; but as we crept along in the heavy sand, through the darkness, looking every moment for the flash of an Indian rifle, I felt all in a glow. I did not think of cold. No doubt, the reason was that I could think only of Indians, and felt that I was in a pretty warm place.

At last! We are out of the sand. The mules strike a good trot. It is only four miles now to Artesian Wells, and then we shall have supper, I am informed. I feel quite light-hearted over the recent past and the close future. Strange to say, with the decrease of my fear of Indians, the glow subsides and I feel cold again. The strain is over; we begin to talk once more. George, the driver, has won my admiration by his cool and calm attention to his team while we passed through the “bad Injun place.”

“If we’re attacked,” George had said, “you others must do the shootin’. I’ll have all I can do to manage this team.”

George was the beau ideal of a good stage-driver in an Indian country—so the lieutenant told me.

“It is a driver’s duty to attend to his team under fire, as George very properly says, as much as it is a surgeon’s to cure the wounded, when necessary, under like circumstances. It requires a good deal more coolness, and it is much harder for him to watch and control his team while bullets are grazing him, than it would be to throw down the reins and begin firing. It takes all his strength and coolness to manage the excited and terrified animals. Shooting gives needed excitement at such a time, but then the mules run off, the stage is upset, and broken legs or necks and certain capture are the result. George is a good driver, and, had he not one great defect, would be a very good man.”

“What is the defect?” I asked.

“Drinking,” whispered the lieutenant.

“He does not look in the least like a drinking man.”

“True; yet he is as drunk as he can be now. He has not been sober for years. George is one of your white-faced drinkers. He is always as you see him now. I have been two years on this line, and I have not seen George sober yet. Look at his eyes when we get to supper, and you will see they are not the eyes of a man in his normal condition.”

“I heard him refuse a pull at the Indian agent’s flask, between Devil’s Landing and Fort Jones.”

“No doubt. That is George’s gnat. He makes it a point never to drink while driving. But he had swallowed his camel before he took the ribbons at Devil’s Landing, and he will swallow another when he reaches Artesian Wells, where his route ends. Aye! and keep swallowing camels every time he wakes up during the night, and until he mounts the box for his return trip to-morrow.”

“What a fearful life for a man to lead!” I said.

“Yes, indeed,” said the lieutenant, “and the ending is still more fearful. George’s team will bring him in some fine morning stone-dead on the box, with the ribbons still in his stiffened fingers.”

“I can imagine,” I answered, “how a man who is excited by strong drink may find pleasure in it, though it may tempt him to break things and get him into many a fight. But I cannot for the life of me imagine why those dead-alive drinkers continue the habit.”

“I suppose they can’t stop it,” said the lieutenant. “They have gone too far to turn back. Death is behind them as well as before.”

Our conversation was interrupted by a series of prolonged howls from George:

“Hi-hi-hi-hi,” etc., ad libitum.

I was very much startled by these vocal efforts. I thought “it was Indians.” Next it struck me that George’s last fit of delirium tremens had commenced, and he was about to become dangerous. My military companion, noticing my astonishment, kindly explained that this was the usual signal to the station-keeper. The drivers commence their howls of warning when they arrive within a mile or so of the station. Their peculiar cry can be heard quite a long way off.

When we were quite near the station, we overtook an ox-wagon with its solitary driver walking by the side of his animals, and giving the talismanic “whoa haws!” and “gees” by which the movements of these clumsy beasts of draught are directed.

“Hallo! Tommy John!” said the driver, bringing his team down to a walk.

“That you, George?”

“What is left of me, my son. Where are you bound for, Tommy?”

“The old Sandy, as usual.”

“How far did you come to-day, Tommy?”

“From the Stone Ranch.”

“You must have left there mighty early.”

“Yes! I started afore daylight. I nooned at the Wala Hole, and watered my stock and cooked my supper at the Great Alamos.”

The conductor then informed “Tommy John,” whose real name was John Thompson, as I learned, of the state of things at the Stone Ranch when the coach passed there.

“So, friend Tommy,” he concluded, “you have got through by a scratch.”

“Oh! pshaw!” said Tommy John, laughing; “Injuns won’t hurt me. I’ve been through the mill too often to be scared.”

“Well,” said the lieutenant, “as you have been fortunate enough to get thus far safely, you had better remain at the Wells until some government train with an escort comes up.”

“That you, lieutenant? How d’e do? Much obliged. But I’m agoin’ to Snake Spring before my next stoppage. I want to get on home as soon as I can. It’s some time since I’ve seen the old lady and my half-dozen babies over on the Sandy.”

“I tell you, Tommy,” said the lieutenant, “you are very foolish to go on from the Wells alone.”

“Oh! no Injuns will trouble me, lieutenant. There’s nothing to take. The investment wouldn’t pay.”

“There’s your scalp to take,” said George, “and I shouldn’t wonder if you lost it.”

“Don’t be afeard about my scalp, George,” said Tommy John, good-humoredly. “I have a notion to go after some ha’r myself this trip.”

“Good-night!”

“Good-night, my son!”

“Gee!”

“Get aup! ye critters.” And off we go, leaving poor Tommy John to pursue his lonely route.

“That thar Tommy,” said George, “is one of the kind-heartedest, good-naturedest fellows as travels this road. An’ he’s churful, too; always in for a joke and a laugh. He’s drove team—ox and mule—on this line for nigh on to four year. He never carries no arms, and always travels alone. He’s had some mighty close shaves has Tommy, but I shouldn’t wonder if they got him yet. He takes too big risks.”

“Does it often happen that you have no passengers, George?” I asked.

“Once in a while,” said George.

“It seems to me that on those occasions you take as big a risk as your friend Tommy.”

“Not by a durned sight,” replied George. “I have a good team, and can give a party of Indians a lively run at any time. I have generally a conductor or express-messenger with me, and a good rifle well handled will keep off a power of Indians for awhile. While he amuses them, I keep lightin’ out for the next station. Before the company got stingy—when there was a swing-station every dozen miles where you got a fresh team—I could have got away from Injuns all the time, either by runnin’ back to the station I had left or pushin’ out for the one ahead of me, accordin’ to whichever was the nearest. I takes no risk that I ain’t obliged to.”

“What do you call a ‘swing-station’?” I asked.

George looked at me with an expression of mixed pity and contempt, and replied:

“A swing-station is where you changes teams; a home-station is the end of a route, where you gits meals.”

It was after midnight when we reached the Artesian Wells. I had found the Sandy Hollow of the Great Alamos a pretty warm place, but after I got out of it I felt cold again, and when I reached the wells I was chilled through. Notwithstanding George’s warning cry, everybody was asleep at the station. It took some time to wake the people up, to get a fire kindled, and a meal prepared. I took advantage of the delay to get at my trunk, whence I took my revolver and some woollen clothing. The latter, with the consent of the cook (a male specimen of the culinary tribe), I put on in the kitchen.

The station was out of fire-wood, and was now endeavoring to effect its cooking with the remaining chips of departed logs and the chips of the passing buffalo. It took a long time to get biscuits baked and meat stewed, thus I had a good nap by the not very bright, though very aromatic, fire. The lieutenant, as soon as the door was opened, had thrown his blankets on the floor and himself upon the blankets; and slept the sleep of the brave until he was waked for supper, or breakfast, as you please.

It was about half-past three o’clock in the morning when we started again. The poor ladies and the child had remained in the coach all this time, notwithstanding our efforts to induce them to alight. Nor could they be induced to accept even a cup of tea or coffee. With what a power of endurance these weak, gentle creatures—our sisters—are endowed!

TO BE CONTINUED.