About
an
hour
and
a
half
before
daylight
we
were
bowling
along
smoothly
over
the
road—so smoothly
that
our
cradle
only
rocked
in
a gentle, lulling way,
that
was
gradually soothing
us
to
sleep,
and
dulling
our
consciousness—when
something
gave
away
under
us!
We
were
dimly
aware
of
it,
but
indifferent
to
it.
The
coach stopped.
We
heard
the
driver
and
conductor
talking
together
outside,
and
rummaging
for
a lantern,
and
swearing
because
they
could
not
find it—but
we
had
no
interest
in
whatever had happened,
and
it
only
added
to
our
comfort
to
think
of
those
people
out
there
at
work
in
the
murky night,
and
we
snug
in
our
nest
with
the
curtains
drawn.
But
presently,
by
the
sounds,
there
seemed
to
be
an
examination
going on,
and
then
the
driver's voice said: "By George,
the
thoroughbrace
is
broke!"
This
startled
me
broad
awake—as
an
undefined sense
of
calamity
is
always
apt
to
do. I said
to
myself: "Now, a thoroughbrace
is
probably
part
of
a horse;
and
doubtless a vital part, too,
from
the
dismay
in
the
driver's voice. Leg, maybe—and
yet
how
could
he
break
his
leg
waltzing
along
such
a
road
as
this? No,
it
can't
be
his
leg.
That
is
impossible, unless
he
was
reaching
for
the
driver. Now,
what
can
be
the
thoroughbrace
of
a horse, I wonder? Well, whatever comes, I
shall
not
air my
ignorance
in
this
crowd, anyway."
Just
then
the
conductor's face
appeared
at
a lifted curtain,
and
his
lantern
glared
in
on
us
and
our
wall
of
mail
matter.
He
said: "Gents, you'll
have
to
turn
out
a spell. Thoroughbrace
is
broke."
We
climbed
out
into
a chill drizzle,
and
felt
ever
so
homeless
and
dreary.
When
I found
that
the
thing
they
called
a "thoroughbrace"
was
the
massive
combination
of
belts
and
springs
which
the
coach rocks
itself
in, I said
to
the
driver: "I
never
saw
a thoroughbrace used
up
like
that, before,
that
I
can
remember.
How
did
it
happen?" "Why,
it
happened
by
trying
to
make
one
coach carry
three
days' mail—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
twice
as
large, has
longer
legs
in
proportion
to
his
size,
and
has
the
most
preposterous
ears
that
ever
were
mounted
on
any
creature
but
a jackass.
When
he
is
sitting quiet,
thinking
about
his
sins,
or
is
absent-minded
or
unapprehensive
of
danger,
his
majestic
ears
project
above
him
conspicuously;
but
the
breaking
of
a
twig
will
scare
him
nearly
to
death,
and
then
he
tilts
his
ears
back
gently
and
starts
for
home.
All
you
can
see, then,
for
the
next
minute,
is
his
long
gray
form
stretched
out
straight
and
"streaking it"
through
the
low
sage-brush,
head
erect,
eyes
right,
and
ears
just
canted
a
little
to
the
rear,
but
showing
you
where
the
animal is,
all
the
time,
the
same
as
if
he
carried a jib.
Now
and
then
he
makes
a
marvelous
spring
with
his
long
legs, high
over
the
stunted
sage-brush,
and
scores a leap
that
would
make
a
horse
envious. Presently
he
comes
down
to
a long, graceful "lope,"
and
shortly
he
mysteriously
disappears.
He
has
crouched
behind
a sage-bush,
and
will
sit
there
and
listen
and
tremble
until
you
get
within
six
feet
of
him,
when
he
will
get
under
way
again.
But
one
must
shoot
at
this
creature
once,
if
he
wishes
to
see
him
throw
his
heart
into
his
heels,
and
do
the
best
he
knows
how.
He
is
frightened clear through, now,
and
he
lays
his
long
ears
down
on
his
back,
straightens
himself
out
like
a yard-stick
every
spring
he
makes,
and
scatters
miles
behind
him
with
an
easy
indifference
that
is
enchanting.
Our
party
made
this
specimen
"hump himself,"
as
the
conductor
said.
The
secretary
started
him
with
a
shot
from
the
Colt; I
commenced
spitting
at
him
with
my weapon;
and
all
in
the
same
instant
the
old
"Allen's"
whole
broadside
let
go
with
a rattling crash,
and
it
is
not
putting
it
too
strong
to
say
that
the
rabbit
was
frantic!
He
dropped
his
ears,
set
up
his
tail,
and
left
for
San Francisco
at
a
speed
which
can
only
be
described
as
a flash
and
a vanish!
Long
after
he
was
out
of
sight
we
could
hear
him
whiz. I
do
not
remember
where
we
first
came
across
"sage-brush,"
but
as
I
have
been
speaking
of
it
I
may
as
well
describe
it.
This
is
easily done,
for
if
the
reader
can
imagine
a
gnarled
and
venerable
live
oak-tree
reduced
to
a
little
shrub
two
feet-high,
with
its
rough bark,
its
foliage,
its
twisted boughs,
all
complete,
he
can
picture
the
"sage-brush" exactly. Often,
on
lazy
afternoons
in
the
mountains, I
have
lain
on
the
ground
with
my face
under
a sage-bush,
and
entertained
myself
with
fancying
that
the
gnats
among
its
foliage
were
liliputian birds,
and
that
the
ants
marching
and
countermarching
about
its
base
were
liliputian
flocks
and
herds,
and
myself
some
vast
loafer
from
Brobdignag
waiting
to
catch
a
little
citizen
and
eat
him.
It
is
an
imposing
monarch
of
the
forest
in
exquisite
miniature,
is
the
"sage-brush."
Its
foliage
is
a grayish green,
and
gives
that
tint
to
desert
and
mountain.
It
smells
like
our
domestic
sage,
and
"sage-tea"
made
from
it
taste
like
the
sage-tea
which
all
boys
are
so
well
acquainted with.
The
sage-brush
is
a singularly
hardy
plant,
and
grows
right
in
the
midst
of
deep
sand,
and
among
barren
rocks,
where
nothing
else
in
the
vegetable
world
would
try
to
grow,
except
"bunch-grass."—["Bunch-grass" grows
on
the
bleak
mountain-sides
of
Nevada
and
neighboring
territories,
and
offers
excellent
feed
for
stock,
even
in
the
dead
of
winter, wherever
the
snow
is
blown
aside
and
exposes
it;
notwithstanding
its
unpromising home, bunch-grass
is
a
better
and
more
nutritious
diet
for
cattle
and
horses
than
almost
any
other
hay
or
grass
that
is
known—so stock-men say.]—The sage-bushes grow
from
three
to
six
or
seven
feet apart,
all
over
the
mountains
and
deserts
of
the
Far
West, clear
to
the
borders
of
California.
There
is
not
a tree
of
any
kind
in
the
deserts,
for
hundreds
of
miles—there
is
no
vegetation
at
all
in
a regular desert,
except
the
sage-brush
and
its
cousin
the
"greasewood,"
which
is
so
much
like
the
sage-brush
that
the
difference
amounts
to
little. Camp-fires
and
hot
suppers
in
the
deserts
would
be
impossible
but
for
the
friendly
sage-brush.
Its
trunk
is
as
large
as
a boy's
wrist
(and
from
that
up
to
a man's arm),
and
its
crooked
branches
are
half
as
large
as
its
trunk—all good, sound,
hard
wood,
very
like
oak.
When
a
party
camps,
the
first
thing
to
be
done
is
to
cut
sage-brush;
and
in
a
few
minutes
there
is
an
opulent
pile
of
it
ready
for
use. A
hole
a
foot
wide,
two
feet deep,
and
two
feet long,
is
dug,
and
sage-brush chopped
up
and
burned
in
it
till
it
is
full
to
the
brim
with
glowing
coals.
Then
the
cooking begins,
and
there
is
no
smoke,
and
consequently
no
swearing.
Such
a
fire
will
keep
all
night,
with
very
little
replenishing;
and
it
makes
a
very
sociable
camp-fire,
and
one
around
which
the
most
impossible
reminiscences
sound
plausible, instructive,
and
profoundly
entertaining. Sage-brush
is
very
fair
fuel,
but
as
a
vegetable
it
is
a distinguished failure.
Nothing
can
abide
the
taste
of
it
but
the
jackass
and
his
illegitimate
child
the
mule.
But
their
testimony
to
its
nutritiousness
is
worth
nothing,
for
they
will
eat
pine
knots,
or
anthracite
coal,
or
brass
filings,
or
lead pipe,
or
old
bottles,
or
anything
that
comes
handy,
and
then
go
off
looking
as
grateful
as
if
they
had had
oysters
for
dinner.
Mules
and
donkeys
and
camels
have
appetites
that
anything
will
relieve
temporarily,
but
nothing
satisfy.
In
Syria, once,
at
the
head-waters
of
the
Jordan, a
camel
took
charge
of
my overcoat
while
the
tents
were
being pitched,
and
examined
it
with
a
critical
eye,
all
over,
with
as
much
interest
as
if
he
had
an
idea
of
getting
one
made
like
it;
and
then,
after
he
was
done
figuring
on
it
as
an
article
of
apparel,
he
began
to
contemplate
it
as
an
article
of
diet.
He
put
his
foot
on
it,
and
lifted
one
of
the
sleeves
out
with
his
teeth,
and
chewed
and
chewed
at
it, gradually
taking
it
in,
and
all
the
while
opening
and
closing
his
eyes
in
a
kind
of
religious
ecstasy,
as
if
he
had
never
tasted
anything
as
good
as
an
overcoat before,
in
his
life.
Then
he
smacked
his
lips
once
or
twice,
and
reached
after
the
other
sleeve.
Next
he
tried
the
velvet
collar,
and
smiled
a
smile
of
such
contentment
that
it
was
plain
to
see
that
he
regarded
that
as
the
daintiest
thing
about
an
overcoat.
The
tails went next,
along
with
some
percussion
caps
and
cough
candy,
and
some
fig-paste
from
Constantinople.
And
then
my newspaper
correspondence
dropped
out,
and
he
took
a
chance
in
that—manuscript letters written
for
the
home
papers.
But
he
was
treading
on
dangerous
ground, now.
He
began
to
come
across
solid
wisdom
in
those
documents
that
was
rather
weighty
on
his
stomach;
and
occasionally
he
would
take
a
joke
that
would
shake
him
up
till
it
loosened
his
teeth;
it
was
getting
to
be
perilous
times
with
him,
but
he
held
his
grip
with
good
courage
and
hopefully,
till
at
last
he
began
to
stumble
on
statements
that
not
even
a
camel
could
swallow
with
impunity.
He
began
to
gag
and
gasp,
and
his
eyes
to
stand
out,
and
his
forelegs
to
spread,
and
in
about
a
quarter
of
a
minute
he
fell
over
as
stiff
as
a carpenter's work-bench,
and
died
a
death
of
indescribable
agony. I went
and
pulled
the
manuscript
out
of
his
mouth,
and
found
that
the
sensitive
creature
had choked
to
death
on
one
of
the
mildest
and
gentlest
statements
of
fact
that
I
ever
laid
before
a
trusting
public. I
was
about
to
say,
when
diverted
from
my subject,
that
occasionally
one
finds sage-bushes
five
or
six
feet high,
and
with
a
spread
of
branch
and
foliage
in
proportion,
but
two
or
two
and
a
half
feet
is
the
usual
height.