Death and destruction seemed to be the end awaiting us all.

Everybody was limp, when we reached the bottom--that is, I was limp, and I suppose the others were.
The stage-driver knew I was frightened, because I sat still and looked white and he came and lifted me out.

He lived in a small cabin at the bottom of the mountain; I talked with him some.

"The fact is," he said, "we are an hour late this morning; we always make it a point to 'do it' before dawn, so the passengers can't see anything; they are almost sure to get stampeded if we come down by daylight." I mentioned this road afterwards in San Francisco, and learned that it was a famous road, cut out of the side of a solid mountain of rock; long talked of, long desired, and finally built, at great expense, by the state and the county together; that they always had the same man to drive over it, and that they never did it by daylight.

I did not inquire if there had ever been any accidents.