I remained silent, and my assailant was called away. Presently Johnnie Hale sat down beside me and whispered that he had two pistols and would give me one if I would not use it unless attacked and would go away with him. I accepted, and we left the house.
Court was in session, and the next day the grand jury presented an indictment against Atkinson for aggravated assault. The District Attorney declined to prosecute, and James A. Zabriskie volunteered to take his place. Will the reader believe that that “carpetbag” Judge (from Canada), appointed by Governor Davis to administer justice over a people he had never seen or heard of, forbade Zabriskie to prosecute for aggravated assault, and declared from the bench that he knew it was merely a simple assault because he witnessed it himself! I take pleasure in recording the fact that this Judge was removed from office by the Legislature of Texas. Atkinson’s violent death is recorded in my account of the San Elezario mob, and that of Johnnie Hale in the account of the killing of Kramkrauer, Campbell, Hale and a Mexican at El Paso in 1881.
FROM EL PASO TO AUSTIN—STAGE DRIVERS.
In February, 1872, we went in the stage coach from El Paso to Austin. The party consisted of Mrs. Mills, myself, Charles H. Howard and a young St. Louis lawyer named Bowman, who was taking his first lessons in frontier life and customs.
If I desired to learn any man’s true character I would want to take a long day and night journey with him in a stage coach. Want of sleep and other annoyances, vexations and privations bring out at times all the ill-nature and selfishness one may possess; and, again, when everything goes smoothly and all are moving leisurely and silently over some long stretch of prairie or plain and the weather is pleasant, men appear to cast all cares and reserve to the wind and converse with each other more frankly and confidentially than elsewhere. At least, that has been my experience and observation.
Here and during other like experiences Mrs. Mills made the acquaintance of the stage driver, a character difficult to describe and now almost extinct.
He possessed the courage of the soldier and something more. The private soldier goes where he is told to march, and fights when he is ordered, but he has little anxiety or responsibility; but the stage driver in those times had to be as alert and thoughtful as a General. There was not only his duty to his employers but his responsibility for the mails (he was a sworn officer of the Government), but the lives of the passengers often depended upon his knowledge of the country and of the Indian character, and his quick and correct judgment as to what to do in emergencies. Like the sailor, he was something of a fatalist, but he believed in using all possible means to protect himself and those under his charge.
Your stage driver was usually of a serious, almost sad disposition; inclined to be reticent, particularly about himself and his former life, and his surname was seldom mentioned by himself or his associates. He was known as “Bill” or “Dave” or “Bobo” or “Buckskin,” or some such sobriquet. When, however, he could be induced to talk about himself as a stage driver his stories were always interesting and sometimes thrilling. There was occasionally a liar among them, but most of them had really experienced such serious adventures and “hair-breadth scapes” that it was not necessary for them to draw upon their imaginations.
Rough, profane and unclean of speech among their own sex, they were remarkably courteous to lady passengers and ever thoughtful of their comfort and feelings, and more than once, on arriving at a station where the drivers were to be changed, I have heard one whisper to another: “Remember, Sandy, there is a little lady in the coach.” This was sufficient.