the conductor. The latter would not, from a sense of decency; the former
would not, because did not choose to encourage the advances of a
station-keeper. We had towels--in the valise; they might as well have
been in Sodom and Gomorrah. We (and the conductor) used our
handkerchiefs, and the driver his pantaloons and sleeves. By the door,
inside, was fastened a small old-fashioned looking-glass frame, with two
little fragments of the original mirror lodged down in one corner of it.
This arrangement afforded a pleasant double-barreled portrait of you when
you looked into it, with one half of your head set up a couple of inches
above the other half. From the glass frame hung the half of a comb by a
string--but if I had to describe that patriarch or die, I believe I would
order some sample coffins.

It had come down from Esau and Samson, and had been accumulating hair
ever since--along with certain impurities. In one corner of the room
stood three or four rifles and muskets, together with horns and pouches
of ammunition. The station-men wore pantaloons of coarse, country-woven
stuff, and into the seat and the inside of the legs were sewed ample
additions of buckskin, to do duty in place of leggings, when the man rode
horseback--so the pants were half dull blue and half yellow, and
unspeakably picturesque. The pants were stuffed into the tops of high
boots, the heels whereof were armed with great Spanish spurs, whose
little iron clogs and chains jingled with every step. The man wore a
huge beard and mustachios, an old slouch hat, a blue woolen shirt, no
suspenders, no vest, no coat--in a leathern sheath in his belt, a great
long "navy" revolver (slung on right side, hammer to the front), and
projecting from his boot a horn-handled bowie-knife. The furniture of
the hut was neither gorgeous nor much in the way. The rocking-chairs and
sofas were not present, and never had been, but they were represented by
two three-legged stools, a pine-board bench four feet long, and two empty