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EFORE the year 1860, many thousands of adventurous immigrants had gone over the Oregon, the Overland and Santa Fe trails and settled in the valleys and mountains of the Pacific Coast. There was no telegraph line to the far West in those days, and no way of sending mail to the pioneers, except by the round-about way of the sea. To meet the urgent needs of the people of the Coast, an enterprising group of men in April, 1860, with the aid of the government, established the Pony Express, the object being to carry important mail overland on horseback over a route lying between St. Joseph, Mo., and San Francisco a distance of 1,950 miles. To do this required two hundred relay stations, five hundred. head of horses and eighty riders. The riders were chosen from among the best and bravest horsemen in the West. The scheduled time for riding this distance was ten days. Never once during the history of the Pony Express did the riders fail, though they were compelled to ride over mountains, over deserts, through the blinding blizzards of winter, and through the blazing hot sun of midsummer-always in danger from sudden attacks of hostile Indians and treacherous, thieving renegade white

men.

The riders were young men, sometimes boys, selected for their lithe, wiry build, their horsemanship, and their unflinching courage. On account of their great ability to ride, they were known as the aristocrats of the saddle; or, to use the words of the plainsmen of the time, the Pony Express riders were all "at the top of the heap."

The horses ridden by these young men were magnificent specimens of horseflesh, picked for speed and en

durance. Each rider was expected to cover seventy-five miles a day. Clad in a buckskin suit, high boots and slouch hat, and equipped with two Colt revolvers and a bowie knife, the Pony Express rider started out from his station. Over his saddle was slung a heavy leather saddle-bag, called a mochila, which was strapped securely to his saddle both in front and behind. In this saddle-bag were four locked pockets which contained the mail, carefully wrapped in oiled silk to protect it from the rain. Except for one pocket kept for mail for the relay stations and government military posts, the pockets were not opened from the time the bag was received by the first rider at St. Joseph, Mo., until it was delivered by the last rider to the agent at San Francisco. The mail carried was limited to twenty-pounds, and as the charge for carrying it was five dollars per half ounce, the letters were written on the thinnest of paper and contained messages of the greatest importance.

The bearers of these messages knew but one fear-that of being behind time. To maintain their schedule time the riders who were sent off on their long race, half across the continent, were put to a test that strained alike the strength of man and beast. No matter what the weather, what the nature of the country, or what danger from Indians or road-agents confronted them, horse and rider must speed on. There could be no delay on account of tempestuous weather. On they must race, day and night. Sometimes the trail led mile after mile over the level prairie; sometimes it led up over mountains where horse and rider were compelled to hug the narrow trail that led along the brink of a precipice, a step in the wrong direction

meant instant death; sometimes the trail led through dark, narrow canons and dense forests where Indians lurked eager to kill.

How anxiously the express riders must at times have scanned the horizon for the relay station where rest. or a fresh horse was to be had. These stations were usually mere huts or shacks, and sheltered the station

keeper and his assistants. As a rule they were twenty-five miles apart, but often, for lack of water or on account of the nature of the country, they were placed much further apart. At these stations a keeper was required to have a horse or pony saddled, bridled and in readiness for a rider a half hour before the rider arrived at the station.

As a rider approached a station he would loosen his leather saddle-bag, containing the mail. Sometimes the station keeper could see him coming, but when night or the intervening scenery prevented this, the rider would give a shout to announce his coming. The instant the rider arrived at the station he swung his precious saddlebag over the saddle of the fresh pony, leaped from his tired pony, flecked with foam, to the back of the fresh one and was off like a shot. Two minutes was the time allowed by the Pony Express Company for a change of horses but it rarely required but a few seconds. When riders were changed the incoming rider would unfasten his saddle-bag before arriving at the station, and have it all ready to toss to the new rider, who would start off at a gallop the moment his hand grasped the bag.

While every rider was expected to cover seventy-five miles before stopping and resting and beginning the return trip, many riders had routes where the distance traveled was much greater. Often, too, a rider would suddenly be called upon to cover, besides his own route, the route of the rider who was supposed to relieve him, but who, on account of death or accident, could not. Thus, William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill," had to cover the route between Red Buttes, Wyoming, and Three Crossings, Nebraska, a distance

of 116 miles. One day, galloping into Three Crossings, he learned from the station agent that the relief rider had been killed. The mail must go on. Without a moment's delay, Cody agreed to ride the dead man's route. This route covered seventy-six miles, and Cody not only rode that distance, but made the return ride in time to cover his own return trip. He there`fore rode 384 miles without stop, except for quick meals and a change of horses-and the mail went through on schedule time.

Cody had a wonderful career as a rider of the Pony Express, when we consider that he was only a boy of fourteen when he entered the service. "Old Jules," the express agent who first employed him, started him with a run of forty-five miles and gave him three changes of horses. He feared that the regular runs would be too much for the boy. But the ambitious Cody had been riding only a months when he asked for a transfer to a longer route "a reg'lar man's route" and was given the one between Red Buttes and Three Crossings. It was while riding this route shortly afterward that he made the record ride of 384 miles through a dangerous country. A week after this remarkable ride, Cody, himself, narrowly escaped being killed by Indians. Near a secluded spot on the route, called Horse Creek, he was waylaid and chased by Sioux Indians, but succeeded in outracing his pursuers. On arriving, however, at the next station the boy found that the station agent had been killed and all the stock stolen by the Indians. He was compelled to ride his tired pony many miles through hostile country before he reached another station and secured a fresh mount.

Another noted rider of the Pony Express was Robert H. Haslam, known as "Pony Bob." He was in the very first relay of express riders, and remained in the service until the Pony Express went out of existence, when he went to driving stage for Wells Fargo & Company. Pony Bob made

the fastest time for any single ride when he rode 120 miles in eight hours and ten minutes. On another occasion he made a ride of 380 miles without a stop, passing through a mountainous country that was swarming with Indians on the warpath. On this particular trip Pony Bob passed the ruins of three stations burned down by the Indians, and he saw among the ruins the mutilated bodies of the station keepers, scalped by the Indians. It was a wonderful ride for a man to make, for he rode over the high Sierra Nevada Mountains, and was constantly beset by Indians, and yet he delivered the mail over to the next rider barely three hours behind schedule time.

Another Pony Express rider of note was James Moore. One time Moore received at Midway Station, in Nebraska, an important government message to carry west. He rode to the next station, 140 miles away. Here he found another important government message that was to go east. The rider who was to carry it had been killed by Indians. Without taking time to eat, Moore mounted a fresh pony and started back for Midway, and made the round trip of 280 miles in less than fifteen hours.

Many of the noted Indian scouts and frontiersmen of the '60's and '70's were, like Buffalo Bill, schooled in the service of the Pony Express. It was a hard school, too, and the man capable of riding for the Pony Express was capable of facing danger in any part of the Indian country. The troops at the military posts along the route could always be depended upon to aid an express rider, but there were many times when the lonely rider, coming suddenly upon a band of Indians, had nothing but his own wits, his trusty pistol and his fleet-footed pony to save his scalp from savage Utes, Shoshones, Bannocks, Sioux, or other of the numerous tribes that were constantly going on the warpath. In

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every instance, save one, the pony of the express rider proved superior in speed and endurance to the ponies of the Indians, and the rider escaped capture. Only once was a rider caught while in the saddle, and that was owing to his being completely surrounded by Indians and escaping one band only to run into the ambush of another. Even in this case the pony broke away from the Indians, and many hours later came stumbling into the next station, badly wounded, but with the valuable mail safely locked within the saddle-bag. True, many riders were killed by Indians, but these, with the exception of the rider just mentioned, were all killed during Indian raids while at the relay stations waiting for the next rider to appear, or while resting between trips.

Not only had the riders of the Pony Express to look out for Indians, but for thieving road-agents, always ready to kill and rob; and for honest immigrants who were likely to mistake the rider for an Indian or a desperado. In those days the man of the plains had to act quick. To shoot first and investigate afterward was the rule, and many were the narrow escapes from death that the Pony Express riders experienced by being suddenly mistaken for Indians, horse-thieves or roadagents.

The Pony Express had a proud record during its existence, not only for the bravery of its riders, but also for speed and endurance. During all its career the riders of the Pony Express lost only one mail, and that was captured and destroyed by Indians who killed the rider carrying it.

With the completion of the Pacific Telegraph line in October, 1861, the Pony Express service was abandoned, and its courageous riders sought other means of livelihood, most of them becoming scouts, Indian fighters, stage drivers and soldiers of that exciting period in our national life known as the Civil War.