eing
late, cracked his whip, and away we went. I tried to stow myself and my
little boy and my belongings away comfortably, but the road was rough
and the coach swayed, and I gave it up. There were passengers on top of
the coach, and passengers inside the coach. One woman who was totally
deaf, and some miners and blacksmiths, and a few other men, the flotsam
and jetsam of the Western countries, who come from no one knoweth
whence, and who go, no one knoweth whither, who have no trade or
profession and are sometimes even without a name.

They seemed to want to be kind to me. Harry got very stage-sick and gave
us much trouble, and they all helped me to hold him. Night came. I do
not remember that we made any stops at all; if we did, I have forgotten
them. The night on that stage-coach can be better imagined than
described. I do not know of any adjectives that I could apply to it.
Just before dawn, we stopped to change horses and driver, and as the
day began to break, we felt ourselves going down somewhere at a terrific
speed.

The great Concord coach slipped and slid and swayed on its huge springs
as we rounded the curves.

The road was narrow and appeared to be cut out of solid rock, which
seemed to be as smooth as soapstone; the four horses were put to their
speed, and down and around and away we went. I drew in my breath as I
looked out and over into the abyss on my left. Death and destruction
seemed to be the end awaiting us all. Everybody was limp, when we
reached the bottom--that is, I was limp, and I suppose the others were.
The stage-driver knew I was frightened, because I sat still and looked
white and he came and lifted me out. He lived in a small cabin at the
bottom of the mountain; I talked with him some. "The fact is," he said,
"we are an hour late this morning; we always make it a point to 'do it'
before dawn, so the passengers can't see anything; they are almost sure
to get stampeded if we come down by daylight."

I mentioned this road afterwards in San Francisco, and learned that it
was a famous road, cut out of the side of a solid mountain of rock; long
talked of, long desired, and finally built, at great expense, by the
state and the county together; that they always had the same man to
drive over it, and that they never did it by daylight. I did not inquire
if there had ever been any accidents. I seemed to have learned all I
wanted to know about it.

After a little rest and a breakfast at a sort o