"This, ladies, you can have. Two can sleep here _nicely_. True, the
bed has not been made, but I can soon settle that!" and putting his
lantern on the floor, he gave the bed a poke or two, and tried to smooth
the frowsy-looking coverlet.

"Oh, that's the express-man's bed!" he said, in answer to our inquiry as
to who was to occupy the outer room. "Must have it, you know; always
stops here. The best room in the town!"

Seeing that we did not appear satisfied, he added--

"You can lock your door" (there was a whole board a foot wide out of the
partition); "and, after all, it's only the express-man; you needn't mind
him. Then in the morning you can sit here, for he is off early, and we
make it the ladies' sitting-room." And drawing the rocking-chair to the
window, he set it going.

But as we still _did_ object to the express-man's proximity, he led
the way to another room, about the same size, but with a door that we
could latch, a bunk bed, a wooden box, and, for toilet apparatus, a
yellow pudding-bowl, and white jug full of water. With some difficulty we
succeeded in getting a lamp, and spreading our rugs over the bed, we lay
down. When the tramping about downstairs ceased, sometime after midnight,
we dozed until morning. I was up first, and, going downstairs in search
of water, could not help laughing at the absurd sight of a row of legs
and dangling braces under the stairway, the heads belonging to them,
being bent over the pails I had noticed there the night before. Seven men
had slept on the floor of the express-man's room that night, for which
accommodation they paid three dollars (15s.). During the day some
twenty women emigrants, who were obliged to leave the car, taking refuge