Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/211

 FRAGMENTARY NOTES OF OLD STAGE DAYS.

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��we were literally flying over the road, diminishing in velocity, however, as the hills became more frequent, and the drifts larger and harder, until we reached a place where the road is flanked by a steep, ascending bank, forty or fifty feet high on one side, and on the other a declivity of a hundred feet or more descending almost per- pendicularly to a river gulch below. A rail fence ran on the edge of the em- bankment, to protect teams from driv- ing off. The snow had blown across this place, completely covering every mark of road or fence, making one steep slide from the top of the bank above, to the bottom of the precipice below.

The horses were walked slowly, for the stage tipped more and more to one side. The men, one by one, got out and walked by the sides to hold it in position — plunging, like the horses, deeper and deeper into the snow at every step. Then we heard bells from behind us, and a sleigh drawn by a poor, lame, dirty, white horse, and containing two men. both of whom had the appearance of having "tarried

long at the ," well, perhaps it was

only Baldwin apples, or their juice, but something certainly had given a most exaggerated color to their noses, and size to their tongues.

The one who was driving called out with an oath, demanding a chance to go by. Our driver answered that we could not turn out till we had passed that drift, and advised him to be a little more patient. The man would not listen to reason, and, after indulging in more oaths, he hit his poor nag — already covered with frost and steam from over-driving — a sharp cut, and, shouting "Ye 're makin' us late to a weddin',and this 'ere 's the feller that's got to be there to be married," at- tempted to pass us on the lower side.

��This, of course, was impossible ; for by this time every stage passenger, ex- cept three ladies, was wading through the snow, holding the stage to keep it right side up, so steep was the road at that place for a distance of sixty rods or more. The poor old horse, urged on by lash and tongue, gave a few des- perate plunges alongside of us, and then, over went horse, sleigh, driver, and bridegroom, down the steep bank, rolling together — legs, arms, harness, buffalo robe, shafts, runners, hats, boots, and red noses — each in its turn, "above, below, betwixt or between" — as the revolving mass presented its alternating portions to our view. When almost at the bottom of the abyss they struck a small tree with such force as to sever the horse from the sleigh, and arrest the whole caravan in its progress, settling the two men firmly in the snow, bare-headed, some distance apart, in the attitude of "stump speakers," and leaving the buf- falo robe with a part of the harness on the tree, while the sleigh spread itself in different directions, and the old horse lay quietly on his side as if he enjoyed the pasture better than the road. Whether the poor creature ever arose from his snowv bed, I never knew, or whether the aforementioned wedding was seriously delayed on ac- count of this untoward accident to the groom ; for we were only able to pull ourselves through the drift with the greatest difficulty, and could do noth- ing for their relief.

It is to be hoped that both, the im- petuous Jehu and the prospective bridegroom, profited by this most ex- cellent opportunity for cool reflection, and that their precipitate plunge into the valley of humiliation had the effect to make them soberer if not wiser men.

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