acking up of heads and bristling of
arched necks and movement of thigh and shoulder muscles under satin
skin like shuttles.

"You must be very proud of your beautiful horses," she said to the
driver.

The driver 'lowed he was: that 'un dappled on the rump there, that 'un
was foaled, let me see? year o' the rush to the Black Hills, with a
squirt of chewing tobacco over the front wheel and a damn't, and
another squirt and more damn't's; and before Eleanor realized the
one-armed driver had asked her if she wouldn't like to learn to drive
double tandems; and she had the reins in her hands; and the double
tandem grays took the bit in their teeth to show what double tandem
grays and ample oats could do.

"How-do," called the driver with a squirt of tobacco over the front
wheel at a rancher loping across the trail. "How-do; y' are up early,
y' son of a gun! What d' y' know?"

"Senator's goin' t' stand again this fall," called the man.

The driver emitted another damn't in true Western style just as
innocently as an Easterner says "Oh, yes, indeed," or an Englishman
says "My word." In fact Eleanor lost count of the damn't's.

"How ever do you manage it?" she asked shifting the reins.

"With my one arm, y' mean?" The stage driver laughed and aimed more
chewing tobacco at that innocent front wheel; and the question drew out
such a story of heroism in spite of the damn't's and the tobacco squids
as made her proud of human clay, just as she had been ashamed of human
something or other inside the stage with the lavender silk and the gold
teeth and Bat's frozen tallow smile.

"Why, it was the year o' the Kootenay rush, ye mind? No, ye don't
mind, ye weren't born then, were y'? Damn't," and a punctuation in
tobacco. "Wall, 'twas in the early days 'fore we had steam hoists an'
things." (Another punctuation mark--a good big one.) "We was usin' an
old hand hoist. Guess the shaft was about hundred feet down--straight
down, an' we was gettin' in the pay streak, bringin' up barrels o' rock
showin' more color every load. Wall, them loads was hauled up to the
dumps by a hand hoist y' onderstand, kind of winch, like y' turn a
handle in old fashioned down East wells. Wall--" (Another punctuation
mark and another dip for ink, so to speak, from the plug in the hand of
the one-armed driver.) "boys were all down under. Say--'twas in the
days when ol' Calamity was runnin' the hills. Know Calamity? She was
a wild 'un in _her_