y! And
there were so many rich possibilities--nay, probabilities--of diversion.
Winter blizzards on Shaniko Flats were to be expected, while after thaws
the heavy stages "bogged down" with aggravating regularity. The steep
villainous road of the Cow Canyon grade upset many a vehicle, and well I
recall one January night, when a two-day rain had turned to snow, when
the air was freezing but the mud was soft, how the up-stage and the
down-stage met in the awful hours where there was no turning out:
clothing was ruined that night, and dispositions warped beyond repair,
while passengers labored and swore and labored again until at last one
stage had been snaked out of the way on a hand-made shelf, so to speak,
and a passing effected. Later, we, who were Shaniko bound, were capsized
in the mud. Half-frozen, wholly exhausted, we finally reached the
railroad one hour after the day's only train had departed! But those
were incidents of the road.

* * * * *

I think I never before saw a man lose his eye and recover it. Yet that
was the optical antic played by my companion "inside." He was a horse
buyer, and I attributed his leer to a cast of character one naturally
connects with horse-trading, until all at once he was groping on the
floor.

"Lost something?" I inquired politely.

"My eye."

On bank holidays I have heard 'Arry say that to 'Arriet at 'Ammersmith,
but as an exclamation, not an explanation. "My eye, he's lost something
valuable, and is British in his expression," thought I innocently. So I
inquired if I could help him in the search.

"And er--what was it you lost?" I added.

"My eye!" He glowered up at me, and the flicker of the match I held
showed a one-eyed face--the eye that had stared at me askew a few
minutes before was missing!

Finally the glass optic was recovered, and he explained that the dust,
working in about it, irritated him, so that occasionally he slipped it
out for cleaning with his handkerchief. During such a polishing it had
slipped to the floor. "I never get caught," he added with a touch of
pride, "here's number two, in case of accidents," and he fished a
substitute from his pocket. That second eye, I noted by daylight later,
was blue, while his own was brown. No doubt it is difficult to get eyes
that match.

As we bumped along a valley bottom, shrouded in our tenacious cloud of
dust, the driver, with whom I rode again, pointed out a couple of
ultra-pro