Woodville Republican. (Woodville, Miss.) 185?-current, 1889-09-14
GRUMPY STAGE DRIVERS.
Old Fellows Who Have Fallen From Thei
High Estate in the Past.

Old Fellows Who Have Fallen From Their
High Estate in the Past.
You reach Fort Custer by a stage
which runs from Custer Station OF the
Northern Pacific to Rock Creek on the
Union Pacific, distance Of 430 miles.
This is one of the few important stage
lines that have managed to survive the
locomotives raids. Its rout takes in
the mountainous districts of Northern
Wyoming, where there are several
large towns to which the railroads have
not yet penetrated. 1t runs through
the Grow country, the richest agricul-
tural region OF all Montana. There are
q dozen bottoms" along the Big Horn
and the Little Big Horn rivers, of from
sixty thousand to one hundred thousand
acres in extent, rank with prairie vege-
tation, where the grain Of nation
might be grown, now all vacant and
useless. Every one of them could be
irrigated at an expense OF less than
fifty cents an acre. The stage drivers
say that there are just such fertile bot
toms along the Yellowstone and along
all the mountain streams that course
through the reservation in all di-
rections These drivers are odd
Dicks. They are the old fellows
who used to drive the Dead
wood and overland stages in the early
days, and they keenly feel the humila-
tion of their present position. To be
compelled after such glorious past,
after having driven six and eight-horse
coaches through land filed with gall
liant road agents, chivalrous horse
thieves, and valiant Indians, after
having been "held up dozen times,
after having been through ''massacres,
lynchings, cowboy fights, and all that
now in his old age, to come down to
a miserable two-horse route, through a
settled country, is almost more than
they can bear. They sit on their lofty
seats gloomy and taciturn. They rare
ly smile or talk. You must work
hard If you hope to secure theil
favor or engage them in a conversa'
ton. The only glympse of sunlight they
ever catch through the dun clouds thai
paper their sky is when dude, an
Englishman, or a fussy old lady be-
comes their passenger, Then soma
thing like a smile touches up theil
darkly burned faces, and by the time
such passenger, or what is left of him
has reached his destination, they are
are almost cheerful The stage
have no springs. The cushions arr
stuffed with flint. The trail il
stony and crossed continual!
with gullies and deep buffalo trails
To one of these melancholy drivers
drawing his career to disappointing
close, nothing is so comforting as Il
shoot dude 'tenderfoot' through thu
stage window upon jag of rocks be
low.
Observing that my driver was in l
pensive humor I said nothing more Il
him than was necessary to procure per
mission to sit ''up there" with him
We rode for twenty miles in dead 81
lence, and at last when we neared tn
station at which we were to obtain din
ner and change of horses, he turne
to me and said: ''Pardner, / like you
When l first see you thort I didn't
But 1 do You're the fust man tina
ever rid on the top of my coach tina
didn't start fer to tell me that gol dern
ed story about Hank Monk and Horac
Greeley!" The ice was broken and W
continued fast friends to the end of tn
ride. Cor. N. Y. Tribune.