Our
new
conductor
(just shipped) had been
without
sleep
for
twenty
hours.
Such
a
thing
was
very
frequent.
From
St. Joseph, Missouri,
to
Sacramento, California,
by
stage-coach,
was
nearly
nineteen
hundred
miles,
and
the
trip
was
often
made
in
fifteen
days
(the
cars
do
it
in
four
and
a half, now),
but
the
time specified
in
the
mail
contracts,
and
required
by
the
schedule,
was
eighteen
or
nineteen
days,
if
I
remember
rightly.
This
was
to
make
fair
allowance
for
winter
storms
and
snows,
and
other
unavoidable
causes
of
detention.
The
stage
company
had everything
under
strict
discipline
and
good
system.
Over
each
two
hundred
and
fifty
miles
of
road
they
placed
an
agent
or
superintendent,
and
invested
him
with
great
authority.
His
beat
or
jurisdiction
of
two
hundred
and
fifty
miles
was
called
a "division."
He
purchased
horses,
mules
harness,
and
food
for
men
and
beasts,
and
distributed
these
things
among
his
stage
stations,
from
time
to
time, according
to
his
judgment
of
what
each
station
needed.
He
erected
station
buildings
and
dug wells.
He
attended
to
the
paying
of
the
station-keepers, hostlers, drivers
and
blacksmiths,
and
discharged
them
whenever
he
chose.
He
was
a very,
very
great
man
in
his
"division"—a
kind
of
Grand
Mogul, a
Sultan
of
the
Indies,
in
whose
presence
common
men
were
modest
of
speech
and
manner,
and
in
the
glare
of
whose
greatness
even
the
dazzling
stage-driver
dwindled
to
a
penny
dip.
There
were
about
eight
of
these
kings,
all
told,
on
the
overland route.
Next
in
rank
and
importance
to
the
division-agent came
the
"conductor."
His
beat
was
the
same
length
as
the
agent's—two
hundred
and
fifty
miles.
He
sat
with
the
driver,
and
(when necessary) rode
that
fearful distance,
night
and
day,
without
other
rest
or
sleep
than
what
he
could
get
perched
thus
on
top
of
the
flying
vehicle.
Think
of
it!
He
had
absolute
charge
of
the
mails, express matter,
passengers
and
stage, coach,
until
he
delivered
them
to
the
next
conductor,
and
got
his
receipt
for
them.
Consequently
he
had
to
be
a
man
of
intelligence,
decision
and
considerable
executive
ability.
He
was
usually a quiet,
pleasant
man,
who
attended
closely
to
his
duties,
and
was
a
good
deal
of
a gentleman.
It
was
not
absolutely
necessary
that
the
division-agent
should
be
a gentleman,
and
occasionally
he
wasn't.
But
he
was
always
a
general
in
administrative
ability,
and
a bull-dog
in
courage
and
determination—otherwise
the
chieftainship
over
the
lawless
underlings
of
the
overland
service
would
never
in
any
instance
have
been
to
him
anything
but
an
equivalent
for
a
month
of
insolence
and
distress
and
a
bullet
and
a
coffin
at
the
end
of
it.
There
were
about
sixteen
or
eighteen
conductors
on
the
overland,
for
there
was
a
daily
stage
each
way,
and
a
conductor
on
every
stage.
Next
in
real
and
official
rank
and
importance,
after
the
conductor, came my delight,
the
driver—next
in
real
but
not
in
apparent
importance—for
we
have
seen
that
in
the
eyes
of
the
common
herd
the
driver
was
to
the
conductor
as
an
admiral
is
to
the
captain
of
the
flag-ship.
The
driver's beat
was
pretty long,
and
his
sleeping-time
at
the
stations
pretty short, sometimes;
and
so,
but
for
the
grandeur
of
his
position
his
would
have
been a
sorry
life,
as
well
as
a
hard
and
a wearing one.
We
took
a
new
driver
every
day
or
every
night
(for
they
drove
backward
and
forward
over
the
same
piece
of
road
all
the
time),
and
therefore
we
never
got
as
well
acquainted
with
them
as
we
did
with
the
conductors;
and
besides,
they
would
have
been
above
being
familiar
with
such
rubbish
as
passengers, anyhow,
as
a
general
thing. Still,
we
were
always
eager
to
get
a sight
of
each
and
every
new
driver
as
soon
as
the
watch
changed,
for
each
and
every
day
we
were
either
anxious
to
get
rid
of
an
unpleasant one,
or
loath
to
part
with
a driver
we
had learned
to
like
and
had
come
to
be
sociable
and
friendly
with.
And
so
the
first
question
we
asked
the
conductor
whenever
we
got
to
where
we
were
to
exchange
drivers,
was
always, "Which
is
him?"
The
grammar
was
faulty, maybe,
but
we
could
not
know, then,
that
it
would
go
into
a
book
some
day.
As
long
as
everything went smoothly,
the
overland driver
was
well
enough
situated,
but
if
a
fellow
driver got
sick
suddenly
it
made
trouble,
for
the
coach
must
go
on,
and
so
the
potentate
who
was
about
to
climb
down
and
take
a
luxurious
rest
after
his
long
night's
siege
in
the
midst
of
wind
and
rain
and
darkness, had
to
stay
where
he
was
and
do
the
sick
man's work. Once,
in
the
Rocky
Mountains,
when
I found a driver
sound
asleep
on
the
box,
and
the
mules
going
at
the
usual
break-neck pace,
the
conductor
said
never
mind
him,
there
was
no
danger,
and
he
was
doing
double
duty—had driven seventy-five
miles
on
one
coach,
and
was
now
going
back
over
it
on
this
without
rest
or
sleep. A
hundred
and
fifty
miles
of
holding
back
of
six
vindictive
mules
and
keeping
them
from
climbing
the
trees!
It
sounds
incredible,
but
I
remember
the
statement
well
enough.
The
station-keepers, hostlers, etc.,
were
low, rough characters,
as
already
described;
and
from
western
Nebraska
to
Nevada
a
considerable
sprinkling
of
them
might
be
fairly
set
down
as
outlaws—fugitives
from
justice, criminals
whose
best
security
was
a section
of
country
which
was
without
law
and
without
even
the
pretence
of
it.
When
the
"division- agent"
issued
an
order
to
one
of
these
parties
he
did
it
with
the
full
understanding
that
he
might
have
to
enforce
it
with
a
navy
six-shooter,
and
so
he
always
went "fixed"
to
make
things
go
along
smoothly.
Now
and
then
a division-agent
was
really obliged
to
shoot a
hostler
through
the
head
to
teach
him
some
simple
matter
that
he
could
have
taught
him
with
a club
if
his
circumstances
and
surroundings had been different.
But
they
were
snappy,
able
men,
those
division-agents,
and
when
they
tried
to
teach
a subordinate anything,
that
subordinate generally "got
it
through
his
head." A
great
portion
of
this
vast
machinery—these
hundreds
of
men
and
coaches,
and
thousands
of
mules
and
horses—was
in
the
hands
of
Mr.
Ben
Holliday.
All
the
western
half
of
the
business
was
in
his
hands.
This
reminds
me
of
an
incident
of
Palestine
travel
which
is
pertinent
here,
so
I
will
transfer
it
just
in
the
language
in
which
I find
it
set
down
in
my
Holy
Land
note-book:
At
noon
on
the
fifth
day
out,
we
arrived
at
the
"Crossing
of
the
South
Platte," alias "Julesburg," alias "Overland City,"
four
hundred
and
seventy
miles
from
St. Joseph—the strangest, quaintest, funniest
frontier
town
that
our
untraveled
eyes
had
ever
stared
at
and
been
astonished
with.