“I kept on swinging through the deserts … in the ‘boot’ of the Concord stage.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THE OVERLAND STAGE
Just before the soldiers left Camp Floyd, the Overland Stage line was opened from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. Shortly afterward the telegraph line was completed across the continent. This ended the work of the Pony Express. Instead of the pony riders dashing on their wiry horses over prairies and mountain and desert, now came the stage drivers with their sturdy horses, four or six-in-hand, rolling along in their great Concord coaches, loaded with passengers, mail, and express.
The stations, as before, were scattered along the trail from eight to sixteen miles apart, according to the water. These stations were mainly low dirt-roofed structures, built of logs or adobe or rock. After Johnston’s army had decamped, the lumber left by them at Camp Floyd was used for some stations. They were large enough to accommodate six to eight horses, and had, partitioned from the stalls, one room for the stable keepers and another for provisions. Grain was hauled to them from the fields of Utah and California. Native hay was supplied from the grassy valleys through which the route lay. Traveling blacksmiths kept the horses shod, and the stages in repair.
As a few of the stations had to be built where there was no spring or stream, it was necessary to haul water to them. This was my first work in connection with the Overland Stage. I had a good four-horse team and was given the job of supplying Canyon station with water.
An overland stage ready for a trip.
One day while I was unloading the water the stage came into this station. Major Howard Egan, who had charge of this division of the route, had the lines. The stage driver lay dead in “the boot” and one passenger was wounded. They had been shot by stage robbers, or “road agents,” as we called them. Another driver must be had. The station keepers said they couldn’t drive four horses, so Major Egan called on me. I hadn’t had any experience handling the stage, but I tried it. The Major seemed to think I drove all right, for he didn’t send any man to relieve me as he promised to do, so I kept on driving. Finally I sold my team and water outfit and became a regular stage driver. For about two years I kept on swinging over the rough and heavy roads through the deserts of Nevada in the “boot” of the Concord stage.
The “boot” was the place where the driver sat perched in front. It was big enough to hold two passengers besides the driver; and a thousand pounds or more of mail could be packed in the “boot” also. Behind this was the body of the coach, big enough to hold six passengers. They sat three on each seat, facing each other. It was hard on those not used to it to sit day and night through clouds of alkali dust or sand, through rain and slush, or snow and cold, cramped up in that stage. If we had to crowd more than six in, as we did occasionally, it was rather rough riding. When few passengers were along, or the mail was lighter, we made up our load with grain or other provisions to be distributed along at the various stations. So we were nearly always well loaded. Often we carried more than a ton of mail in the “boot,” and strapped on the back platform.
Some pictures I have seen of the Overland Stage have passengers on top. This is a mistake. There was no place on the rounded top for passengers. Some of the boys occasionally lashed packages there. The passengers would have had to be strapped on too, if they had tried the top, for they would have got pitched off in a hurry, the stage rocked so. The body of the stage was hung on great leather springs, and it swung with a kind of cradle motion as we dashed along. When a fellow learned how to swing with it, things went all right; if he didn’t, it was hard riding.