AGECOACH

My high-blown pride
At length broke under me and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.
--_Shakespeare_.

Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens.... When I was at home I was
in a better place; but travelers must be content.--_Shakespeare_.

THE STAGECOACH

At frequent intervals throughout the widening West may be seen the
relegated ship of the desert standing forlorn, friendless, forsaken.
The merciless claws of summer and the icy fangs of winter are
loosening the red paint, and the white canvas cover and side curtains
are flapping in the winds. The tired tongue, dumb with age and years
of use, still tells tales of hardships by the silent eloquence of its
multitude of unhealed scars.

This class of carryall was at once unique and supreme. It was the
one indispensable link in the endless chain of evolution popular and
powerful, the only public agent of the Trail and the plains until
the unconquerable initiative of the lord of the world had time to
steel a highway with trackage for more rapid transit. What a living
link was that old overland stage! To look upon an isolated and
abandoned relic of earlier pioneerdom is like standing at the marble
monument of some human pivot in the mighty march of man's progress.
Before the bold and bustling railway noisily elbowed its way into the
affections of travel and commerce and pushed aside the patient wagon
of the nation-builders, the tens of thousands of hurried travelers
enjoyed (or endured) the hospitality of its rocking thorough-braces as
they, hour by hour, day after day, and night after night, and even
week after week in the longer journeys, sat atop or inside this
leviathan of the sand-ocean making the most rapid trip possible and
under safe guidance.

Could such old hulk tell its story, could that dried-up old tongue but
begin to wag again, what tales! First would come those of the men too
often overworked and underappreciated, like our modern railmen, the
drivers of the stage. These, as the ancient Jehu, were compelled to
drive furiously on occasion, in order to keep a cramped schedule or
make up for the loss of time brought about by a breakdown, a washout,
or some Indian depredation. Few drivers there were who did not love
their work. It came to be a saying, "Once a driver, always a driv