that’s how it happened,” said he. “And right here is the very direction
which is wrote on all the newspaper-bags which was to be put out for the
Injuns for to keep ’em quiet. It’s most uncommon lucky, becuz it’s so
nation dark I should ‘a’ gone by unbeknowns if that air thoroughbrace
hadn’t broke.”
I knew that he was in labor with another of those winks of his, though I
could not see his face, because he was bent down at work; and wishing him
a safe delivery, I turned to and helped the rest get out the mail-sacks.
It made a great pyramid by the roadside when it was all out. When they
had mended the thoroughbrace we filled the two boots again, but put no
mail on top, and only half as much inside as there was before. The
conductor bent all the seat-backs down, and then filled the coach just
half full of mail-bags from end to end. We objected loudly to this, for
it left us no seats. But the conductor was wiser than we, and said a bed
was better than seats, and moreover, this plan would protect his
thoroughbraces. We never wanted any seats after that. The lazy bed was
infinitely preferable. I had many an exciting day, subsequently, lying
on it reading the statutes and the dictionary, and wondering how the
characters would turn out.
The conductor said he would send back a guard from the next station to
take charge of the abandoned mail-bags, and we drove on.
It was now just dawn; and as we stretched our cramped legs full length on
the mail sacks, and gazed out through the windows across the wide wastes
of greensward clad in cool, powdery mist, to where there was an expectant
look in the eastern horizon, our perfect enjoyment took the form of a
tranquil and contented ecstasy. The stage whirled along at a spanking
gait, the breeze flapping curtains and suspended coats in a most
exhilarating way; the cradle swayed and swung luxuriously, the pattering
of the horses’ hoofs, the cracking of the driver’s whip, and his “Hi-yi!
g’lang!” were music; the spinning ground and the waltzing trees appeared
to give us a mute hurrah as we went by, and then slack up and look after
us with interest, or envy, or something; and as we lay and smoked the
pipe of peace and compared all this luxury with the years of tiresome
city life that had gone before it, we felt that there was only one
complete and satisfying happiness in the world, and we had found it.
After breakfast, at some station whose name I have forgotten, we three
climbed up on the seat behind the driver, and let the conductor have our
bed for a nap. And by and by, when the sun made me drowsy, I lay down on
my face on top of the coach, grasping the slender iron railing, and slept
for an hour or more. That will give one an appreciable idea of those
matchless roads. Instinct will make a sleeping man grip a fast hold of
the railing when the stage jolts, but when it only swings and sways, no
grip is necessary. Overland drivers and conductors used to sit in their
places and sleep thirty or forty minutes at a time, on good roads, while
spinning along at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour. I saw them do
it, often. There was no danger about it; a sleeping man will seize the
irons in time when the coach jolts. These men were hard worked, and it
was not possible for them to stay awake all the time.
By and by we passed through Marysville, and over the Big Blue and Little
Sandy; thence about a mile, and entered Nebraska. About a mile further
on, we came to the Big Sandy–one hundred and eighty miles from St.
Joseph.
As the sun was going down, we saw the first specimen of an animal known
familiarly over two thousand miles of mountain and desert–from Kansas
clear to the Pacific Ocean–as the “jackass rabbit.” He is well named.
He is just like any other rabbit, except that he is from one third to