We do the first ten miles with a bearable amount of jolting, and stop to change horses. The five insiders get out, and we take a nip at the roadside house, or what would be such if there were any roads. I observe four most perverse, obstinate, wild-looking horses being cautiously fastened to the stage; they are clearly uneducated—‘wild mustangs’ one of the insiders called them. They are held tightly. ‘All aboard, boys?’ says the driver (they call him _Mose_)—in we scramble—bang slams the door—and with an awful lurch away we go! Now I can understand the suspicious-looking machinery, designed, on the principle of life-buoys, for stage-tossed travellers to cling to. Holding on to these we swing along as hard as the beasts can gallop. I am told by a fellow-passenger that unless the ‘mustangs start at a gallop, they either upset the stage, or kick themselves clear of the harness.’ On this journey they were agreeable enough to gallop off, so we escaped the two contingencies. Several times _Mose_ shouted, ‘Get out, boys, and hang on awhile.’ I discover that this means that we are to cling to the side of the stage, that our united weight may prevent its capsizing, when going along the side of a slope like the slant of a housetop. Near dark we are requested by ‘Mose’ to walk up the last hill. A tall sallow man, with a face hollow and sunken, closely shaven, except a tuft at the chin, steps along with me, and we reach the top of the hill a good time before the stage. We are standing amidst some scrubby timber. The long shadows of the trees are swallowed up in the gathering gloom, the music of the forest has died away, and, save the wind sighing through the leafy foliage, everything is still. My companion draws nearer. ‘Stranger,’ he began, in a voice that appeared to come from his boots, and get out at his nose, ‘jist war we are standin’, three weeks agone, a tarnation big grizzly come slick upon two men, jist waitin’ for the stage, as we are; chawed up one, and would a gone in for t’other, but he made tall travellin’ for the stage. When they came up Ephraim had skedaddled, and they never see him or old Buck-eye arter.’ This is refreshing! I hope if ‘old Ephraim’ does come, he may eat my tough companion. The stage came, but the bear did not. We reach our destination at 8 p.m.: how sore I am!