Arizona republican., 1899-12-05
BRET HARrE's STAGE STORIES.
The Passenger Who Wanted to Sleep
 Lost an Opportunity.

My determination to make myself comfortable under all circumstances
 has been matter of regret oftener
 than I can tell you," is the way in which an easy-gOing southerner be- gan, in an uptown club, what turned into an interesting story. ''I have all ways. or nearly always, insisted on having my sleep when I felt so in- clined. A good many years ago I was in the far West, where stage coaches
 were considered a luxury. I took my place in one from the door of miners tavern in a mountain town, the name of which I long ago forgot. IL was dark when the driver started the horses. I was the sole occupant of the old rattle-trap, and drawing my buff falo robe about me I turned in for q sleep. Somewhere, l never knew where. l awoke to find the stage at a stand still. The driver and some one afoot were engaged in conversation. I could hear only the sound of the voice of the man in the road, but l distinctly heard the driver say that it was alarmed strange perhaps the language was stronger-that a man should want to get into a stage at such place. Then he said to the applicant:
 Well, crawl in there and don't get gay with that other passenger. If l hear anything out of you I'll put you down in a cayote camp and you won't know you was ever livin'.
 The stranger got in and was my wis avis. I concluded to return to my sleep. The stranger concluded he would ike to be companionable. He began by saying he didn't blame the driver.
 Picking up a passenger in the dead of night in such a bowling wilderness vas not safe. I said, mo- and shut up. Tne stranger said it was a country fuil of adventures, and that he had wit
 messed a lot of them. I made no reply, but he proceeded. The last I heard him say at that time was something about a mountain storm in which he had an experience he would never for get l determined not to hear ii. and didn't. I went to sleep. I don't know how long I slept. When l awoke the driver was at one of the doors of the coach. What the conversation was about or why the driver concluded to get off his box and look in I never knew. I heard him growI at the stranger.
 You shut up and keep quiet, or you get out You was the last in, and t'other passenger was fust in, and of he don't want to gab, you hush up
 From the strangers reply I at once concluded that he was gentleman. and that he had done nothing to exclte the driver. However. I had not fin ished my sleep, and rolled over to be- gin again. The stranger laughed good naturedly and began another story. I was determined l would not listen, and l didn't. 1 went to sleep. Along about daylight the stage stopped before an other mountain tavern. The snow was blowing in every direction. A blizzard was on. The stranger left me at that place. He wished me pleasant jour ney and said in a sort of cheery way that he hoped that driver would be more agreeable: at the same time he said that drivers were not to be feared, that as a class they were the soul of honor. Then he handed me his card. It seemed odd in that God-forsaken Country, in a stage coach, too, for a 5stranger to be so courteous. People seldom do that in a railroad train. showed the card in my pocket. I was still drousy. I fear I may have ap- peared gruf. I slept until I reached my destination. Later in the day l unloaded my pocket and the card turned up. Then I knew I had, in my determination to be comfortable, lost the opportunity of hearing some good stories from a man who became one of the foremost writers of his time. The name on the card was Bret Harte."