“Where they going?”
“White Sulphur; an’ say, look a heah, foh dis in-foh-ma-shun bring me out a twist o’ backer.”
The recipient of the bag passes through a crowd of six or eight men about the door-way, and enters the store. A few minutes elapse in which the “Jehu” fires some tongue shots at the loungers; then the mail-bag is returned, the foot is taken from the break, the whip cracks, and away you go. Another store is passed with a saw-mill opposite to it, and the river, blocked until it spreads to twice its customary breadth, pouring and thundering over a substantial dam. The noise of waters and the saw is deafening; then, in a twinkling, it is all still, and you are trotting along between green hedges, and great clouds of dust envelope the barking dogs which follow.
Along the way is seen the prepared trail for the iron horse which is to supersede stage-travel;—the great yellow dirt embankments through the fields; the deep grading sinking dizzily close at the roadside; the short curves through narrow valleys, and the swallowing of it all by the solitary woods.
If you are fortunate enough to ride with the same good-natured driver whom we had, and he is in mellow mood, you may be interested for an hour by a story which he is fond of telling. For fear that you might get the wrong man, I will tell it in condensed form.
In the fall of 1877, the driver was employed on the stage route from Asheville to Henry’s. He was an old reinsman, but the road was unfamiliar to him from the fact of his being only lately transferred from another branch. One afternoon in November, with the highway slippery under-foot from a cold sleet, he left Asheville with the heavy stage and a party of five persons inside,—an old, white-haired man and four women. He was unavoidably delayed at different points, so that, when he began the actual descent of the Blue Ridge, a black, cold night enveloped the landscape. With his teeth chattering, he lighted the lamps, drew on his gloves again, mounted to his place, and began rumbling downward. Over-head the trees creaked and groaned in the hollow blast; the horses slipped in turns as they pushed along, and the huge stage would occasionally slide, in spite of the locked brake, down on the flanks of the rear span. Even with this uncomfortable state of affairs, he could have driven along without much hazard, but suddenly the lamps went out. Through strange carelessness he had forgotten to refill them when he left the stables. The darkness was like that of a soundless mine: it was almost palpable. Staggered with the situation, he checked his horses. He must go on, but how could he? Near at hand he knew was the most dangerous place in the whole road, where even a slight pull to one side would send the stage and its occupants rolling down a declivity, steep, deep and rugged enough to smash the former, and kill every one of the latter. The horses, accustomed to the way, might possibly be trusted; but then that possibility! It was too slippery to lead them, and besides his foot must be on and off the break in turns. It was imperative for him to be at Henry’s that night, both on account of his express duties and his passengers, who would freeze before morning. He sat shivering on the stage top.
He heard the stage door open below, but knew not for what reason, nor whose feet were striking the ground, until a voice came up out of the pitchy darkness:
“Why don’t you go on?”
It was the old gentleman who spoke.
“Can’t. Don’t you see de lamps ar’ out?”