STAGE DRIVERS. 255 



These stage drivers had a very hard life, though they were 

 well paid, getting from twelve to fifteen pounds a month. 

 They had to drive in all weathers, and were given in many 

 cases unbroken horses, which they had to keep straight over 

 roads which would frighten a European coachman full of 

 holes and stumps, and in wet weather halfway to the axle in 

 mud ; while the bridges were merely trees laid across the 

 streams with poles placed side by side across them, only one in 

 ten or twelve being pegged at the end, and with no rail of any 

 kind, the poles jumping about as the coach passed over 

 them, and looking as if the whole thing was going to pieces. 

 It was very trying to the nerves to sit on the box-seat of one 

 of these stages and turn a corner at a gallop to find a chasm 

 before you bridged as I have described, everything depending 

 on the coachman's keeping his wild team in the middle. Also 

 many of the stage routes were through a part of the country 

 where there was always a chance of attack by Indians, the 

 driver and conductor having rifles beside them and revolvers 

 in their belts, as it was by no means uncommon for every soul 

 on the stage to be murdered and scalped. Many of these 

 drivers were very good fellows, who if they took a fancy would 

 keep you amused the whole journey by stories of the different 

 oddities they had carried and the adventures they had gone 

 through, while if they got hold of a " tenderfoot " the amount 

 of information they would give him must have very much 

 astonished his friends on his return home. There were very 

 few accidents considering there was a coach every day, as the 

 men were splendid whips, though their way of holding their 

 reins would astonish a member of the " Four-in-Hand Club." 



From Virginia Dale F started off into the mountains, 



