The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1891-11-21
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THE JOHNSTOWN STAGE.

City of Rocks was losing its sharp out
lines in the radiating heat of July after
noon. The unbroken, gray sage-brush
plain surrounding it had already lost its
one outline, the horizon, and now merged
itself in the distance of its dustiness. The
void between glaring plain and glaring sky
was filed with hot silence. 1t was the
silence of solitude undsturbed by human
ity for the only human habitation in the
City of Rocks was the stage station, and
that, in its square, uncompromising adsp-
tation to its uses, seemed lonelier than the
rough, but sometimes beautiful and always
fantastic, stone formation around it. Any
one could see why this place was called
City of Rocks. Its name fitted, as most
frontier names fit, until they are subjected
to the personal vanity or nicer sense Of
refined map makers. But any one could
not see why its unhewn, granite masses
should rise so abruptly and unreasonably
from the level, sage-brush desert. To an
| imaginative or cultivated mind there was
something eerie about these castle turrets
and cathedral spires, seen afar in an unin-
habited land; and to such, an armed
knight with lance in rest, charging across
/ the plain, would not have been out of
place. Such a person, necessarily pas
senger on the .Johnstown stage, with vague
anticipations of romance, would very
likely question the stage-driver. The re-
ply, without doubt, would be that this was
an outcropping of the same ledge in which
they had struck high-grade ore in the
Blue Gulch district If the driver 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 ques-
toner would find that this was all there
was of it. Indeed, it is more than proba-
BILE 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
Northwestern Stage Company paid him
only to drive.
The Johnstown stage was due at City of
Rocks at ) o'clock. About that hour
man in flannel shirt, dirty soldier-trous-
ers tucked in his boots, and a slouch hat
on the back of his bronzed, bearded, un-
kempt head, materialized in the obscurity
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 became visible in the dis
tanee. 1t floated and wavered nearer and
nearer, until the creaking and jingling of
dry wood, leather and metal and the pound
ing of hoofs were heard. Then as the
cloud approached the station, an apparition
of two horses and stage coach was seen
within it. The cloud stopped in front of
the house, the dust settled, and the coach,
coated inside aad out with the white pow
der, was disclosed. The driver, looking
like a miller, laid his whip on the roof and
prepared to descend The station keeper
who meanwhile, had stepped out into the
road and silently commenced to unhook
the traces, looked up for the first time,
The next moment he dropped the trace
with an exclamation of wonder, while his
hand slowly but instinctively sought the
revolver which hung in belt loosely about
his hips. For few seconds he scrutin-
lied the face of the man who was swinging
himself down from the box, and then his
look Of surprise changed to one of recogni-
ton, his hand relaxed its hold on the pis-
tol, and he said heartily, swell, I'll be
burned Lieutenant, is that you? Why
what's come of Sim? ?"
oHe was taken sick down at Shotgun
Creek and had to lay off at the milk
ranch said the man addressed, taking of
his hat and beating out the dust against
his leg. He was tall and broad-shouldered
but slender, and was dressed in the same
manner as the station-keeper, even to the
revolver which hung about his hips His
voice and bearing, however, the only char
acteristics unaffected by the dust, betrayed
difference between them.
s'Sick, nothing!' exclaimed the hostler
in tone of disgust, taking out the straw
which he held between his teeth anG
throwing it energetically on the ground
'sThat fellows alays sick I'm burned i
| don't b'Iieve he's weakened sence Whist
ling Dick jumped his stage last month
He's yeard that the paymaster's sendins
his money up by express this trip to pay
off the boys at the fort, and he's afearet
he'll git jumped again. Durn him that
what's the matter. 1t leaves me in pur
ty fixr' he continued. Franks out afte
stock, and there's no one yere but me
Who's goin' to take the stage on2"
uTll take it on as far as Pack City,
) you like" said the lieutenant. "The oil
man will find some one there to take Jim
place easy enough"
: The station-keeper, without replying
mechanically resumed his duties of takin
out the horses, and watched them medita