Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1889-01-17
The JOHNS1.owA STAGE.
The Story Of y Woman's
Courage.

City of Rocks was loosing its sharp
outlines in the rsdisting heat CT \ July
afternoon. The unbroken. gray sage
brush plain surrounding it had already
lost it's one outline. the horizon, and
now merged itseIf in the distance of its
own dustiness. The void between glsr-
ing plain and glaring sky was filled
with hot silence. 1t was the silence Of
solitude undisturbed by humanity; for
the only human habltation in the City
of Rocks was the stage station, and that
in its square, uncompromising adap-
tion to its uses, seemed lonelier than the
rough, but sometimes beautiful, and al.
ways fantastic, stone formation around
Anyone could see why this place was
called City of Rocks. It's name fitted,
as most frontier names fit, until they
are subjected to personal vanity or nic-
er sense of modesty Of refined map ma
kers. But any one could not see why
its unhewn granite masses should rise
so abruptly and unreasonsbly from the
level, sage-brush desert.
To an imaginative or cultivated
mind there was something cerie about
these castle turrets and cathedral spires
seen afar in an uninhabited land, and
20 such, an armed knight with lance in
rest, charging acros, the PLAIN, would
not have been out Of place. Such a
person. necessarily passenger on the
Johnstown hage, with vague antic'pa-
tions of romance, would very likely
question the stage. driver. The reply,
without doubt, would be that this was
an outcropping of the came ledge in
which they had struck high-grade ore
in the Blue gulch district. If the dri-
yer felt like talking the additional fact
might be extracted that the Indians
called it "The seven houses where the
witches laugh" This would sound
promising, but the questioner would
find that this was all there was of it.
Indeed, it is more than probable that
the questions Of the imaginative and
cultivated stranger would ere this have
elected from the driver the sole but
pregnant fact that the Idaho and North
western Stage Company paid him only
to drive
The Johnston Stage was due at City
of Rocks ut 5 o'clock. About that hour
a man in a flannel shirt, dirty soldier
trousers tucked IN his boots, and hat
on the back of his bronzed, bearded, un
kempt lseal, n,aterialized in the OBJ
scurity of the doorway of the station
house, and shading his eyes with his
hand, looked down the road.
AS he stood there a cloud Of dust be.
came visible in the distance. 1t float
ed wavered nearer and nearer, until the
creaking and jingling of dry wood,
leather, and metal. and the pounding
of hoofs, were heard. Then as it ap.
preached the station, an apparition of
two hc-s> and stage coach was seen
within it
The cloud stopped in front of the
house. the dust settled, and the coach.
coated inside and out with the white
powder. was disclosed. The driver,
looking like miller. laid his whip oD
the roof and prepared to descend. The
station keeper who, meanwhile stepped
out into the road and silently commenc-
ed to unhook the traces. looked up for
the first time. The next moment he
dropped the trace with an exclamation
of wonder, while his hal.d slowly but
instinctively sought the revolver which
hung in Il belt loosely about his hips
For a few seconds lie "scrutin!zd the