The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-04-06
THE Old STAGE DRIVER
Making His Last Stand in the
Far West.
RAILROADS PUSHING HIN
Wherever He Is Found He ls skill
An Important Person-Exeite.
n,ent Of His ArrivaI-little Nice.
ties of His Profession Set Fortl,
In Graphic Manner.

ties OF His Profession Set Forth
In a Graphic Manner.
1t is only in isolated regions of the
West, where the thing we call civil
ization has by chance neglected its
duties. as the plowman leaves weedy
patches in the corners of the field,
that the cowboy may still be found
unspoiled; and it is even a rarer for.
tune to encounter a stage driver
whom readers of Bert Harte could
recognize What the homesteader and
the sheepman have done to the one,
the railroad has done to the other;
and the sadness of Fastening extinc
tion hangs over them both.
Here is Estes Park happy, unrail-
roaded land!-the coming of the
stage is daily happening, in which
every inhabltant takes an interest so
keenly personal that the event ITSELF
as well as the interest, becomes spec
tacular.
Toward 1880 o'clock anxiety sits
gaunt upon every countenance. Will
the stage be late? Somebody who
drove over Park Hill in the morning
said the roads were heavy. A freight.
er from Lyons was stuck for three
hours on the other side of the pass.
The outlook grows gloomier every
minute, and all eyes are strained
with gazing at the dusty road toward
the place where 1t disappears behind
the shoulder of a hill. IL needs no
over fanciful inclination to conceive,
after listening to impatient exclama.
tions on all sides, that the continued
tolerability of many lives, as well as
the further existence of Estes Park
as habitable place, depends upon the
arrival Of that stage, with its pouches
of mail No one may know tho golden
increments OF expectancy who has
not waited for letter by stage.
A boy (of course) perched precar-
iously on the roof of the store first
descries the stage whirling in its
nimbus of dust around the promon-
tory. Upon his shout the groups sud
denly rearrange themselves and the
relaxation of facial muscles presages
new faith in the ultimate worth of
human existence. Meanwhile the
stage, in kind of final fury of speed.
careens grandly up the stretch of
road, sweeps through the open space
ordered by the postmaster, makes an
elated swing for position. and stops at
the postoffice door with the wheels
within an inch of the steps, but never
grazing them. To have scraped them
hn ht,f, 1int frAv
which the driver never could have
recovered.
The mail and the passengers out,
the driver takes his tired team to the
stable, and then loses no time return
ing afoot to the postofiice, where, hav-
ing accepted one of many proffered
cigars, he deigns to make Spartan-like
replies to the volumes of questions
and tentative remarks timidly ad-
dressed to him. He Is a good fellow
at heart, tolerant of the common
world, and willing at times to enter
tain with speech as well as deeds.
But today is not his day for loqua.
city. Down at Lyons, where the Bur-
lington ends he heard bit of news
ludl Ouo VI tHS pIOpOSeu DTdHCH lines
of the railroad now building will prob
ably have Estes Park for it's terminus
and his heart is filled with sadness.
BY and by the crowd, seeing his mood
leave him to his reflections, and the
departing people, hurrying away by
the four roads they came, leaving
him leaning against a post, with the
postmaster's woolly dog squatting at
his feet and looking sympathetically
up in his face.
The stage driver has let his cigar
go out, and his eyes are fixed upon the
west. where behind the snowy range
the sun is tumbling into his world bed
of rosewood inlaid with pearl and
draped with cloud curtains of frail
pink and tender yellow hues. But it
is not the sunset he sees. Behind
Old Flat Top yonder, thirty miles
away, are the grading camps of the
new railroad that Is climbing the
Rockies on its way to the Pacific
coast. And II he is not thinking of
them, the interlopers, it's quite too
bad, and | am done with him.-Ed-
frid A. Bingham, Estes Park Col.