tin washbasin, on the ground. Near it was a pail of water
and a piece of yellow bar soap, and from the eaves hung a
hoary blue-woolen shirt, significantly--but this latter was 30
the station keeper's private towel, and only two persons
in all the party might venture to use it--the stage driver
and the conductor. The latter would not, from a sense of
decency; the former would not, because he did not choose
to encourage the advances of a station keeper. We had
towels--in the valise; they might as well have been in
Sodom and Gomorrah. 5

We (and the conductor) used our handkerchiefs, and
the driver his pantaloons and sleeves. By the door, inside,
was fastened a small old-fashioned looking-glass
frame, with two little fragments of the original mirror
lodged down in one corner of it. This arrangement afforded 10
a pleasant double-barreled portrait of you when you
looked into it, with one half of your head set up a couple
of inches above the other half. From the glass frame hung
the half a comb by a string--but if I had to describe that
patriarch or die, I believe I would order some sample 15
coffins. It had come down from Esau and Samson, and
had been accumulating hair ever since--along with
certain impurities. In one corner of the room stood three
or four rifles and muskets, together with horns and pouches
of ammunition. 20

The station men wore pantaloons of coarse country-woven
stuff, and into the seat and the inside of the
legs were sewed ample additions of buckskin to do duty
in place of leggings when the man rode horseback--so
the pants were half dull blue and half yellow, and 25
unspeakably picturesque. The pants were stuffed into
the tops of high boots, the heels whereof were armed with
great Spanish spurs whose little iron clogs and chains
jingled with every step. The man wore a huge beard and
mustachios, an old slouch hat, a blue-woolen shirt, no 30
suspenders, no vest, no coat; in a leathern sheath in his
belt, a great long "navy" revolver (slung on right side,
hammer to the front), and projecting from his boot a horn-handled
bowie knife. The furniture of the hut was neither
gorgeous nor much in the way. The rocking-chairs and
sofas were not present and never had bee