moments, but the rain usually
continued until morning.

It usually happened that you either at once took a great liking for your
driver and conductor, or the reverse. Once, on a trip from Kansas City,
nearly a third of a century ago, when I and another man were the only
occupants of the coach, we entertained quite a friendly feeling for
our driver; he was a good-natured, jolly fellow, full of anecdote
and stories of the Trail, over which he had made more than a hundred
sometimes adventurous journeys.

When we arrived at the station at Plum Creek, the coach was a little
ahead of time, and the driver who was there to relieve ours commenced to
grumble at the idea of having to start out before the regular hour. He
found fault because we had come into the station so soon, and swore he
could drive where our man could not "drag a halter-chain," as he claimed
in his boasting. We at once took a dislike to him, and secretly wished
that he would come to grief, in order to cure him of his boasting. Sure
enough, before we had gone half a mile from the station he incontinently
tumbled the coach over into a sandy arroya, and we were delighted at the
accident. Finding ourselves free from any injury, we went to work
and assisted him to right the coach--no small task; but we took great
delight in reminding him several times of his ability to drive where our
old friend could not "drag a halter-chain." It was very dark; neither
moon or star visible, the whole heavens covered with an inky blackness
of ominous clouds; so he was not so much to be blamed after all.

The very next coach was attacked at the crossing of Cow Creek by a band
of Kiowas. The savages had followed the stage all that afternoon, but
remained out of sight until just at dark, when they rushed over the
low divide, and mounted on their ponies commenced to circle around
the coach, making the sand dunes resound with echoes of their infernal
yelling, and shaking their buffalo-robes to stampede the mules, at the
same time firing their guns at the men who were in the coach, all of
whom made a bold stand, but were rapidly getting the worst of it, when
fortunately a company of United States cavalry came over the Trail from
the west, and drove the savages off. Two of the men in the coach were
seriously wounded, and one of the soldiers killed; but the Indian loss
was never determined, as they succeeded in carrying off both their dead
and wounded.

Mr. W. H. Ryus, a friend of mine