“I never saw a thoroughbrace used up like that, before, that I can remember.  How did it happen?”

“Why, it happened by trying to make one coach carry three days’ mail —­that’s how it happened,” said he.  “And right here is the very direction which is wrote on all the newspaper-bags which was to be put out for the Injuns for to keep ’em quiet.  It’s most uncommon lucky, becuz it’s so nation dark I should ‘a’ gone by unbeknowns if that air thoroughbrace hadn’t broke.”

I knew that he was in labor with another of those winks of his, though I could not see his face, because he was bent down at work; and wishing him a safe delivery, I turned to and helped the rest get out the mail-sacks.  It made a great pyramid by the roadside when it was all out.  When they had mended the thoroughbrace we filled the two boots again, but put no mail on top, and only half as much inside as there was before.  The conductor bent all the seat-backs down, and then filled the coach just half full of mail-bags from end to end.  We objected loudly to this, for it left us no seats.  But the conductor was wiser than we, and said a bed was better than seats, and moreover, this plan would protect his thoroughbraces.  We never wanted any seats after that.  The lazy bed was infinitely preferable.  I had many an exciting day, subsequently, lying on it reading the statutes and the dictionary, and wondering how the characters would turn out.

The conductor said he would send back a guard from the next station to take charge of the abandoned mail-bags, and we drove on.

It was now just dawn; and as we stretched our cramped legs full length on the mail sacks, and gazed out through the windows across the wide wastes of greensward clad in cool, powdery mist, to where there was an expectant look in the eastern horizon, our perfect enjoyment took the form of a tranquil and contented ecstasy.  The stage whirled along at a spanking gait, the breeze flapping curtains and suspended coats in a most exhilarating way; the cradle swayed and swung luxuriously, the pattering of the horses’ hoofs, the cracking of the driver’s whip, and his “Hi-yi! g’lang!” were music; the spinning ground and the waltzing trees appeared to give us a mute hurrah as we went by, and then slack up and look after us with interest, or envy, or something; and as we lay and smoked the pipe of peace and compared all this luxury with the years of tiresome city life that had gone before it, we felt that there was only one complete and satisfying happiness in the world, and we had found it.

After breakfast, at some station whose name I have forgotten, we three climbed up on the seat behind the driver, and let the conductor have our bed for a nap.  And by and by, when the sun made me drowsy, I lay down on my face on top of the coach, grasping the slender iron railing, and slept for an hour or more.  That will give one an appreciable idea of those matchless roads.  Instinct will make