Knights of the Lash by Major Ben C. Truman

Knights of the Lash - Page 2

For many years "Baldy" Green was a favorite driver in the Sierra, but in 1866, and for a long time afterwards, he drove out of Virginia City, Nevada, on the Austin Drive as far as Big Ned's, seventy-five miles from Virginia City. He was nearly six feet in height and proportionately built, and was altogether as handsome a man as one could wish to meet. His eyes were large, lustrous, and beautiful. His moustache was perfect. He wore a number seven boot and had a hand like a woman's. There was a sparseness of hair on his head and he was known as Baldy in consequence. To have addressed him as Mr. Green would have been as totally out of place as it would be to address Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker as Birdie.

He once drove Ben Holladay and the writer, Horace Greeley, from Virginia City to Austin, 185 miles, in seventeen hours. He also let himself out thirty odd years ago upon Vice-President Colfax and party between Big Ned's and Virginia City, putting them over the road on one occasion forty-five miles in four hours.

Virginia City, Nevada, 1866.

He was fond of John Barleycorn, and took his "snifters" with exceeding regularity. As a judge of that ambrosial decoction, known as whiskey-punch, Baldy Green was an accomplished juror.

Baldy had whips and canes and gloves and hats given him by Colfax, Richardson, Bross, Bowles, Fitzhugh Ludlow, Judge Carter, Hepworth Dixon, Captain Burton, Brigham Young, Jr., Ned Adams, John McCullough, Setchell, Senators Sharon, Fair, Stewart, and Nye, Tom Fitch, "Artemas Ward," and Jerome Leland. He had driven Forrest, Booth, Billy Goodall, the Western Sisters, Susan and Kate Denin, Billy Birch, Ben Cotton, Sher Campbell, Jerry Bryant, Barry Sullivan, Starr King, Talmage, Bishop Kip, Horace Greeley, "Yankee" Sullivan, John C. Heenan, Barrett, and scores upon scores of eminent men and women representing all professions and pursuits.

"Artemas Ward," said Baldy, "was the funniest man I ever had on the seat with me, and dear Ned Adams the jolliest. We sang and drank and told stories and laughed all the way. Mark Twain has ridden with me, but I never liked him. He seemed to study a long time before he said anything funny. And he never gave me a cigar or asked me to take a drink in his life. Joe Goodman was a good fellow. Jim Nye could rattle off stories all day. Tom Fitch was always broke. Ben Holladay was the most profane man I ever knew. Johnny Skae was always going to send me a new hat or some gloves, but they never reached me. Bill Stewart never said turkey to anyone. General Winters and General Avery were generous to a fault.

"Doctor Talmage once rode with me and said he could see God in all the tree tops. 'Do you drink?' he thundered in my left ear one night. I thought sure he was going to pull out a flask. But he didn't. He just said: ' You shouldn't.' Then he pointed to a new moon and said: 'There's no water in that moon.' And I just hazarded the reply that there was a lucky crowd up there, and then he opened his mouth like a cavern and shouted, 'Ha!' so loudly that my team came near running away.

But, that man Starr King was a glorious person. The music of his voice still lingers in my ear. Charley Forman was a generous fellow, everybody liked him. John McCullough was a pleasant chap, I tell you, and he could get away with a good many drinks between drinks. Heller went out of Virginia with me once and every once in a while he would take an egg from under my nose, or from the tip end of my glove. And once he took hold of my nose as if to blow it, and let fall from it, it seemed, about a dozen half dollars which he rubbed together and then out of sight between his hands and then took them out of my hat. Ah, those happy times will never come again."

The Pioneer Stage, George Holbrook Baker, lithographer

Short, stout, jolly Billy Hamilton is known as one of the oldest and best drivers upon the Pacific Coast and a man who has owned stage lines in many parts of Oregon, Nevada, and California. He could handle the "ribbons" with any of them for thirty years, and commenced staging in 1850. For many years he owned the lines from Colfax to Grass Valley, from Los Angeles to Bakersfield, from Mojave to Independence, and many others. Billy was fond of his "tod" when not driving. For twenty-five years he made more money than he knew what to do with, and he literally threw it away. He was generous to a fault and has loaned more twenty-dollar gold pieces in his life that he could never get back than you could put in a peck measure.

I have ridden with Billy in the Sierra, through the Mojave Desert, and over the Coast Range, and considered him one of the most delightful whips in the world. He weighs 190 pounds and is sixty-five years old, and although he has struck bed-rock pretty closely a number of times, he was often helped out by Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker, (who never went back on any of the forty-niners who had done them a service), and now owns a pretty ranch in Kern county, where he resides when he is not at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, playing "cinch " for half bottles of Extra Dry.

Buffalo Jim, who was laid to rest at Merced, in 1881, was a well known Yosemite driver twenty years ago, but had driven at times from Portland, Oregon, to Tucson, Arizona. I came down from the Valley with him once, when his only other passengers were two women from Los Angeles and two children and an Eastern clergyman. Jim was accounted a good driver, but upon the occasion referred to, there was something the matter with the nigh wheel horse (he was driving only four horses), which he attempted in vain to discover. The animal acted worse and worse for about a mile, when at last it commenced to buck and kick and finally broke in the dash board. At this, the team started on the run and Jim put down the brake as far as he could and yanked the team with all his might. His hat flew off and we went like the wind. The horses all kicked and ran, and I saw he was getting worn out and scared; and although I believe I could have helped him if he would have permitted me, (the two women were my wife and sister, and their children,) I know the peculiarities of these fellows and would not offer assistance, but merely said to those inside in answer to their questions:

"The team is running away, but don't jump!"

As we happened to be on a smooth, wide piece of road where there were no big rocks or trees, I felt that the team would run itself tired and that the stage would not be turned over if the harness and brake held and it did not leave the grade. After a run of four miles Jim handed me the lines over the wheelers, saying:

"Do the best you can, old man, for I am about gone up!"

The harness was getting shaky, and two of the traces had given away, but the under-gear, the brake, and the lines, remained all right, and we soon struck a stretch of deep sand and at last brought up the team within a few hundred yards of a swing station, which we managed to reach in bad condition. Jim was limp with fatigue, so much so, that he could not swear properly. We all drew long breaths, although none inside realized the closeness of the call we had just had on that mountain grade.

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