Chapter III - Page 2

mail-bags from end to end. We objected loudly to this, for
it left us no seats. But the conductor was wiser than we, and said a bed
was better than seats, and moreover, this plan would protect his
thoroughbraces. We never wanted any seats after that. The lazy bed was
infinitely preferable. I had many an exciting day, subsequently, lying
on it reading the statutes and the dictionary, and wondering how the
characters would turn out.

The conductor said he would send back a guard from the next station to
take charge of the abandoned mail-bags, and we drove on.

It was now just dawn; and as we stretched our cramped legs full length on
the mail sacks, and gazed out through the windows across the wide wastes
of greensward clad in cool, powdery mist, to where there was an expectant
look in the eastern horizon, our perfect enjoyment took the form of a
tranquil and contented ecstasy. The stage whirled along at a spanking
gait, the breeze flapping curtains and suspended coats in a most
exhilarating way; the cradle swayed and swung luxuriously, the pattering
of the horses' hoofs, the cracking of the driver's whip, and his "Hi-yi!
g'lang!" were music; the spinning ground and the waltzing trees appeared
to give us a mute hurrah as we went by, and then slack up and look after
us with interest, or envy, or something; and as we lay and smoked the
pipe of peace and compared all this luxury with the years of tiresome
city life that had gone before it, we felt that there was only one
complete and satisfying happiness in the world, and we had found it.

After breakfast, at some station whose name I have forgotten, we three
climbed up on the seat behind the driver, and let the conductor have our
bed for a nap. And by and by, when the sun made me drowsy, I lay down on
my face on top of the coach, grasping the slender iron railing, and slept
for an hour or more. That will give one an appreciable idea of those
matchless roads. Instinct will make a sleeping man grip a fast hold of
the railing when the stage jolts, but when it only swings and sways, no
grip is necessary. Overland drivers and conductors used to sit in their
places and sleep thirty or forty minutes at a time, on good roads, while
spinning along at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour. I saw them do
it, often. There was no danger about it; a sleeping man will seize the
irons in time when the coach jolts. These men were hard worked, and it
was not possible for them to stay awake all the time.

By and by we passed through Marysville, and over the Big Blue and Little
Sandy; thence about a mile, and entered Nebraska. About a mile further
on, we came to the Big Sandy--one hundred and eighty miles from St.
Joseph.

As the sun was going down, we saw the first specimen of an animal known
familiarly