l the time," he replied.
"It goes from Mexico to the Gila, about a hundred and fifty miles."

"Like this?"

"South it's rockier. Better put the flap down."

"I don't see where people live," I said, as two smoky spouts of sand
jetted from the tires and strewed over our shoes and pervaded our
nostrils. "There's nothing--yes, there's one bush coming." I fastened
the flaps.

"That's Seven-Mile Mesquite. They held up the stage at this point last
October. But they made a mistake in the day. The money had gone down the
afternoon before, and they only got about a hundred."

"I suppose it was Mormons who robbed the stage?"

"Don't talk quite so loud," the stranger said, laughing. "The driver's
one of them."

"A Mormon or a robber?"

"Well, we only know he's a Mormon."

"He doesn't look twenty. Has he many wives yet?"

"Oh, they keep that thing very quiet in these days, if they do it at
all. The government made things too hot altogether. The Bishop here
knows what hiding for polygamy means."

"Bishop who?"

"Meakum," I thought he answered me, but was not sure in the rattle of
the stage, and twice made him repeat it, putting my hand to my ear at
last. "Meakum! Meakum!" he shouted.

"Yes, sir," said the driver.

"Have some whiskey?" said my friend, promptly; and when that was over
and the flat bottle passed back, he explained in a lower voice, "A son
of the Bishop's."

"Indeed!" I exclaimed.

"So was the young fellow who put in the mail-bags, and that
yellow-headed duck in the store this morning." My companion, in the
pleasure of teaching new things to a stranger, stretched his legs on the
front seat, lifted my coat out of his way, and left all formality of
speech and deportment. "And so's the driver you'll have to-morrow if
you're going beyond Thomas, and the stock-tender at the sub-agency where
you'll breakfast. He's a yellow-head too. The old man's postmaster, and
owns this stage-line. One of his boys has the mail contract. The old man
runs the hotel at Solomonsville and two stores at Bowie and Globe, and
the store and mill at Thacher. He supplies the military posts in this
district with hay and wood, and a lot of things on and off through the
year. Can't write his own name. Signs government contracts with his
mark. He's sixty-four, and he's had eight wives. Last summer he married
number nine--rest all dead, he says, and I guess that's so. He has
fifty-seven recorded children, not counting the twins born la