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 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 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 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.
Men of every station
In the eye of fame,
On a common level
Coming to the same--
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 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 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 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.