The passenger jumped for a place in the coach; the long whip cracked. The horses sprang forward; and away the stage rattled round curves where a hind wheel would try to go over the edge--only the driver didn't let it; down embankments where any normal wagon would have upset, but this one didn't; up sharp grades where no horses ought to be driven at a trot, but where the six persisted in going at a gallop! The passenger didn't mind the jolting that almost dislocated his spine. He didn't mind the negro who sat on {106} one side of him or the fat squaw who sat on the other. He was thankful not to be held up by highwaymen, or dumped into the wild cataract of waters below. Outside was a changing panorama of mountain and canyon, with a world of forests and lakes. Inside was a drama of human nature to outdo any curtain-raiser he had ever witnessed--a baronet who had lost in the game and was going home penniless, perhaps earning his way by helping with the horses; an outworn actress who had been trying her luck at the dance-halls; a gambler pretending that he was a millionaire; a saloon-keeper with a few thousands in his pockets and a diamond in his shirt the size of a pebble; a tenderfoot rigged out as a veteran, with buckskin coat, a belt full of artillery, fearfully and wonderfully made new high-boots, and a devil-may-care air that deceived no one but himself; a few Shuswaps and Siwashes, fat, ill-smelling, insolent, and plainly highly amused in their beady, watchful, black, ferret eyes at the mad ways of this white race; a still more ill-smelling Chinaman; and a taciturn, grizzled, ragged fellow, paying no attention to the fat squaw, keeping his observations and his thoughts inside his high-boots, but likely as not to turn out the man who {107} would conduct the squaw to the bank or the express office at Yale. If one could get a seat outside with the guards and the driver--one who knew how to unlock the lore of these sons of the hills--he was lucky; for he would learn who made his strike there, who was murdered at another place, how the sneak-thief trailed the tenderfoot somewhere else--all of it romance, much of it fiction, much of it fact, but no fiction half so marvellous as the fact. Bull-teams of twenty yokes, long lines of pack-horses led by a bell-mare, mule-teams with a tinkling of bells and singing of the drivers, met the stage and passed with happy salute. At nightfall the camp-fires of foot travellers could be seen down at the water's edge. And there was always danger enough to add zest to the journey. Wherever there are hordes of hungry, adventurous men, there will be desperadoes. In spite of Begbie's justice, robberies occurred on the road and not a few murders. The time going in and out varied; but the journey could be made in five days and was often made in four.