Returning to his boarding-place, the traveler secured Donahue’s letter to his father, and about the middle of the ensuing day took stage, with three other gentlemen, for Minersville, some thirteen miles distant, over the mountain and near Pottsville. Ordinarily but a couple of hours would be consumed in making the trip, but the occupants of the stage were no ordinary people and were not fated to make an ordinary journey. They had not been long out when the sun was obscured by huge, lead-colored clouds, and across the heavens drifted vapory masses of a more fleecy character. Then a heavy snow-storm set in, adding to the prevailing discomfort and making the progress of the mule team more painfully slow. The passengers, none of whom knew McKenna, and none of whom were personally known to him, made light of their troubles and gave jokes plentifully and cheerfully upon the snow, the driver and his rig, and concerning one another. It was true the conveyance and its propellers and captain sadly needed repairs, the Jehu being in the sere and yellow leaf of his age, having but one leg to stand upon—and that troubled with rheumatism—while the mules were spavined and lame, the vehicle shattered in cover and framework, and uneasy and creaking in its running gear, not to speak of the harness, which seemed made of odds and ends, selected from the refuse of some army collection, idle since the close of the war. Still, up hill and down grade, the animals managed to move at a little better than a snail’s pace. Gradually the hillsides wrapped a winding-sheet of snow around them, as though taking eternal farewell of earth, and the stunted pine and hemlock and mountain ash took on a similarly white and beautiful mantle. The highway, never too clearly marked, was to the eye of a stranger entirely lost sight of, and nothing but an educated sense or instinct on the part of driver and beasts could prevent the stage and its freight from foundering by the wayside, or dashing suddenly and unexpectedly off the brink of one of the numerous rocky precipices, among and around which, in many a serpentine coil, wound the road they were trying to follow. Once, when at its very verge, the driver saw a yawning gulf just before him. He was barely in time to quickly draw in the reins, thus saving himself and his passengers from certain destruction. But the worst was not yet over. The mules would not back, do all their manager could, and the travelers were forced to alight, put their shoulders to the wheels, and extricate the vehicle without the aid of the team. This consumed time, and it was nearly dusk before the wagon was once more in the road and all mounted and ready to proceed. “Pat. McCarthy, an old friend of mine down on Long Island, would say,” remarked McKenna, while pushing at a wheel with all his strength, “that this was almost aqual to workin’ your passage on the canal—drivin’ the horse and walkin’ on the tow-path!”