The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1883-03-09
HANK MoNR.
hora"" resley's EHHuG- r..r Reaches
Ihr Home Station.
tGit Ldke TrbuHe.

'Wf L"@ FfbHHe.
The famous s. age driver Is dead. lie has
been on the down graLr II long lime. On
wednesday his foo, lest It's GlIal hold on tho
brake anil his coach could not be stopped
until, bate ed aud broken on a sharp turn,
IL went over into that canon, black and deep,
which We call death. In his way Hank
Monk was a character. In the old days,
before the feathers under his coach were SO
soaked with alcohol, there was no better
balanced head than his. There was all air
about him which his closest friends could
not understand. There was something
, which seemed 10 say that stage driving was
not his intended work; that, If he plea'ed,
there were other things, even more difficult
than handling six wild horses, which he
could do quite as well. Generally, he was
reserved Of speech, sententious In his ways,
blu. often, while battling with higk-strung
team, would pronounce al epigram worthy
OF lngersoll or Emerson. After his little
episode with Greeley, distinguished men
passing over the Sierras, where Monk drove,
would plan TO ride outside with him. Many
one has ridden twenty miles, trying in
vain 10 call him out, and at last has settled
back with the belief that he was but stold
idiot, when half dozen words from Monk,
spoken with bis peculiar drawl, showed that
when he drove Greeley's coach over the
mountains there was, perhaps, as big a man
outside as there was inside the vehicle. As
he was not like any other man, so he was
not like any other stage driver. In his
prime he would turn a sx-horse coach In
the street With the team at full run, and
with every rein apparently loose. But the
coach would always bring up in exactly the
spot that the most careful driver would have
tried TO bring II. His eye never deceived
him, and his estimation Of distances was
absolute; the result which must be when
leaders, swings and wheelers all were play
ing their roles, was with him an exact
science. His driving was such a perfection
Of art that 1t did not seem art
watching him, has turned away saying,
"he Is the lucklest man that ever climbed
on top of box" 1t was not luck at all, 1t |
was simply an intultive, exact calculation
from cause to effect, and his whole duty end |
ed when he fixed the cause. The effect had
TO be. lie has often driven from the summit
of the Sierras down into the valley, ten miles,
in forty.fye minutes. Other drivers have
done as well, the only difference being that
with Others IL was strain upon eye, and
anl ,.ith %
a matter of course. He was TO stage driving
what the German papers say Edwin Booth
was In Hamlet: at was not played, but
lived" OF course we speak Of him as he
was Of Old, when the railroad was yet beyond
the Sierras, and when staging over the
Sieras was something finer than staging ever
was before, or ever will be again. OF late
years Monk has been but ghost Of himself.
Ills physical strength has been so wasted
that no wild horses have been given him; the
grades up the mountains have not been
spriukled; the locomotive took away the
glory Of staging, and bad whsky Slapped the
finer springs Of the old drivers life. A year
ago, for the first time, coach capszed under
LuS hNSlutut bcSmeu
In itself, IL was notice 10 him that his hand
had lost its cunning, that his lamps were 60
ing OUT, that dark canon was before him,
and there was no moon TO rise. When this
winter closed down he went into his little
denof house and knew that he was going
10 mire down IN a few weeks. When friends
irled 10 have him consent 10 be removed TO
the hospital, where be could have more COM
forts, he refused and waited where he was,
pntIl Wednesday last, when he drove into
the home station. He died simply dlsspa-
ted old stage driver; but If iu the long ago,
when life was bright and hope was exultant,
his heart did not receive q wound which
changed Ills whole life, and all Its purposes,
then mans face, and acts, and moods, and
modes Of thought are no indication Of what
he has done and suffered.