had been toiling up a steep ascent, and now were skirting the mountain side, a high wall of rock on the one hand, a sheer descent of many hundred feet on the other.
Blake glanced from the window with a shudder, and turning a ghastly face upon the others, "We shall be hurled into eternity in another minute," he said, in a hoarse whisper.
Then voice after voice was raised, calling to the driver in expostulation, warning, entreaty.
"You are risking your own life as well as ours," cried one.
"I tell you I don't care!" he shouted back, with a fearful oath; "we're behind time, and I'll lose my place if I don't make it up. I'll get you to C – by half-past five, or land you in h – ll, I don't care which."
"O my children, my poor little children!" cried the mother, clasping her babe closer to her breast and bursting into tears. Then, in a sort of desperation, she thrust her head out of the window and shrieked to the man, "For the love of Heaven, driver, have mercy on my poor babes!"
The man was probably a father, for that appeal reached his heart, hardened as it was: there was instantly a very sensible diminution of their fearful velocity, though the stage still rolled on at a dangerously rapid rate; keeping them all in terror until at length it drew up before the door of a tavern; where they were to halt for their supper.
The gentlemen made haste to alight. Mr. Lord handed out Mildred, then the mother and her children.
"You must be very tired, ladies," he said, following them into the parlor of the inn, which was very plainly furnished with rag carpet, wooden chairs and settee, and green paper window-blinds, nothing tasteful, nothing inviting, except an appearance of order and cleanliness.
"Yes, sir, I am dreadfully tired," the strange lady answered, dropping into a chair and setting her babe on her knee, while she drew the older child to her side and wiped the tears from its cheeks, for it was sobbing pitifully; "that was a fearful ride, the jolting and shaking were bad enough, but the fright was ten times worse. And we're almost starved," she added. "My little Mary is crying with hunger. I hope they'll give us time to eat here. Do you know, sir, how soon the stage starts on again?"
"I will step out and inquire; also how soon the supper will be ready," Mr. Lord said, moving toward the door.
"Can I do anything for you, Miss Mildred?" he asked, pausing upon the threshold. "You are looking wretchedly pale and fatigued," he added, in a tone of concern.
The other gentlemen had gone to the bar-room; but at this moment Blake came to a window of the parlor, looking out upon a porch which ran along the whole front of the house. He looked red and angry.
"It seems the same game is to be repeated here," he said, addressing Mr. Lord; "the supper is not ready and the stage will leave in half an hour. There is every appearance of rain too; the night will be cloudy and dark, making travel over these mountains doubly dangerous. I propose that we all decide to remain where we are over night and let the stage go empty. If the whole party will agree in doing so, 'twill serve the rascal right, and perhaps teach him a useful and much needed lesson. What do you say, sir? you and your – daughter?"
"My lady friend," stammered Mr. Lord, coloring violently. "What do you think of the plan, Miss Mildred?"
Her cheek, too, flushed a rosy red as she answered eagerly: "Oh, let us stay, by all means! I'm sure it would be better a great deal, than risking our lives on such roads at night."
"Just what I think," said the other lady, "and my little ones are too tired to travel any farther to-night. I shall stay whether the rest do or not. I intend that the children and I shall have a chance to eat one full meal at any rate," she added to Mildred, as the gentlemen walked away together.
The call to supper followed almost immediately upon the announcement that no one would leave in the stage that night.
With the keen appetites they brought to it, our travellers found the fare excellent – good bread and butter, baked potatoes, ham and fresh-laid eggs.
Mr. Lord, seated between the two ladies, was very kind and attentive to both, but as usual did some absurdly absent-minded things.
"Do you really prefer salt to sugar in your coffee, Mr. Lord?" asked Mildred demurely, but with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, as she saw him draw the salt-cellar toward him and dip his teaspoon into it.
She had stayed his hand just in time. "Oh no, certainly not," he said, laughing to cover his confusion as he hastily emptied the spoon into his saucer. "It is a very pleasant evening," he remarked, sugaring his potato.
"Do you think so?" said Mildred, listening to the dash of the rain against the window, for the threatened storm had come. "Then I suppose, like the Shepherd of Salisbury Plains, you are pleased with whatever kind of weather is sent?"
"Certainly we all should be," he said. "But I was not aware till this moment that it was raining."
Mildred presently becoming interested in some talk going on between her opposite neighbors, had for the moment almost forgotten Mr. Lord's existence. She was recalled to it by a hasty movement on his part. He suddenly pushed back his chair, rose, and walked out of the room.
A glance at his saucer, half full of coffee, then at the laughing eyes of the other lady, enlightened our heroine as to the cause of his sudden exit.
"Salted coffee is not, I find, particularly palatable," he remarked, coming back and resuming his seat. "I am a sadly absent-minded person, Miss Mildred; you should watch over me and prevent such mistakes, as my mother does at home."
"I really do not feel equal to so arduous an undertaking," was her sprightly rejoinder.
"This is a lonely spot, not another house in sight, they say," remarked the mother of the children to Mildred, as they returned to the parlor. "I am timid about sleeping alone in a strange place, and should like to have a room adjoining yours, if you do not object, are not afraid of being so near a lioness and her cubs," she added, with a slight laugh. "I am Mrs. Lyon."
Mildred gave her name in return, and expressed entire acquiescence in the proposed arrangement, and being much fatigued with their journey they presently retired.
They were up and dressed betimes to make sure of their breakfast before the early hour at which the stage was to leave. But they were treated to a repetition of former experiences. The meal was delayed, and they had been scarcely ten minutes at the table when they heard the roll and rumble of the wheels and the loud "Toot, toot!" of the driver's horn, as the stage swept round from the stables and drew up before the tavern door.
There was a hasty swallowing down of another mouthful or two, a hurried scramble for hats, bonnets, and parcels, a crowding into the vehicle, and in a moment more it was toiling up the mountain side.
The appetite of no one of the party had been fully satisfied, and there was a good deal of grumbling and complaining from this one and that.
"I tell you, friends," said Blake, "it is high time there was a stop put to this thing. I have an idea in my head, and at the next stopping place, if we are hurried off in the usual style, I want you all to follow my example. If you will, these rascally fellows will find themselves outwitted."
"What is it?"
"What's your plan?" queried one and another, but the only answer was, "Wait and you will see, gentlemen."
"There is one thing I have thought of," Mrs. Lyon said to Mildred, "I'll have my own and the children's
