"Certain."
"Take something?" and I made a feint of reaching into the inside pocket of my coat for "something" I did not have.
"Can't! that's agin' the rules—I'm a man of family and I don't care to lose my job."
"So am I a man of family, and my friend, the Major there, he has a family—a wife and nine children, all young. You love your family?"
"What do you ask that for? 'Course I do."
"So does the Major love his—the eldest only ten years old. You noticed, perhaps, on coming up, when we were talking about making time, going down 'in a whirl;' I think you expressed it so? Yes, he said not a word, just sat and listened. He was thinking about the seventeen miles down hill, round those short curves, in two hours and a half. The Major has a slight heart trouble, and any little excitement, like rolling down the mountain side, or getting upset, might be injurious to him. Being a man with a large family I desire to avoid his running any risk—you understand? His family is dependent on him and he has no life insurance. Now, the making of this trip in two hours and a half might be well enough for me, because I am used to it, you know; I haven't so much of a family, and I've ridden with Bill Updyke and Jake Hawks, and there is nothing I should like better than just such a ride as you proposed—I'd glory in it, but I'm a little uneasy about the Major. The doctor has already warned him against any undue excitement. Hold on a minute! there is another matter: he'd never hint that he is nervous, he is very averse to having it thought that he is troubled that way—see? And just as like as not, to show you that he is not nervous, he would tell you to 'Let 'em out!' Now—hold on a minute! if he should tell you so, don't you do it—you just go round those curves quietly, and trot along easy like, or walk. He's a very close friend of mine, you can understand. Take this," and I slipped a half-dollar into the driver's hand. Just then I heard the Major yelling to me with the voice of a strong man in enviable health to "hurry up."
The driver accepted the half-dollar and went round one end of the barn to the carriage, while I took the other way. When we were seated he touched the off leader gently, the team started, and then he twirled the long lash of his whip with a graceful and fancy curve that rounded up with a report like that of a small pistol. The mules struck into a gallop and I concluded that my half-dollar was wasted, literally thrown away, to say nothing of my other appeal. The loss of the latter caused me the more chagrin—the money was a trifle. But think of that blessed stage-driver ignoring my eloquence! By the great horn spoon! as Joshua would have expressed it, if I had a gun and was not deterred by the thought of consequences, I'd leave the wretch as food for the eagles—he'd never be missed. Just about the time I had him fairly killed and his body comfortably rolled over a precipice where it would never be discovered, he came to the first turn. The mules were on a dead run, and what did that—blessed driver do? He just let that silk out again, gave a yell like a Comanche and whirled round that bend without so much as allowing the wheels to slide a quarter of an inch, and away he went, down the short, straight stretch as though he had been paid to go somewhere in a hurry. When he made the next turn I leaned over and said quietly: "Let me see that half-dollar I gave you; perhaps it is plugged."
He changed his lines and whip into his left hand and passed over the suspected coin with his right. I substituted a silver dollar, which he slipped into his pocket, straightened out his lines and brought the mules down to a trot.
"Why don't you let 'em out, driver?" inquired the Major.
The driver looked round as if he thought I had addressed him.