In
a
little
while
all
interest
was
taken
up
in
stretching
our
necks
and
watching
for
the
"pony-rider"—the
fleet
messenger
who
sped
across
the
continent
from
St. Joe
to
Sacramento, carrying letters
nineteen
hundred
miles
in
eight
days!
Think
of
that
for
perishable
horse
and
human
flesh
and
blood
to
do!
The
pony-rider
was
usually a
little
bit
of
a man, brimful
of
spirit
and
endurance.
No
matter
what
time
of
the
day
or
night
his
watch
came on,
and
no
matter
whether
it
was
winter
or
summer, raining, snowing, hailing,
or
sleeting,
or
whether
his
"beat"
was
a
level
straight
road
or
a crazy trail
over
mountain
crags
and
precipices,
or
whether
it
led
through
peaceful
regions
or
regions
that
swarmed
with
hostile
Indians,
he
must
be
always
ready
to
leap
into
the
saddle
and
be
off
like
the
wind!
There
was
no
idling-time
for
a pony-rider
on
duty.
He
rode
fifty
miles
without
stopping,
by
daylight, moonlight, starlight,
or
through
the
blackness
of
darkness—just
as
it
happened.
He
rode a
splendid
horse
that
was
born
for
a racer
and
fed
and
lodged
like
a gentleman; kept
him
at
his
utmost
speed
for
ten
miles,
and
then,
as
he
came crashing
up
to
the
station
where
stood
two
men holding
fast
a fresh,
impatient
steed,
the
transfer
of
rider
and
mail-bag
was
made
in
the
twinkling
of
an
eye,
and
away
flew
the
eager
pair
and
were
out
of
sight
before
the
spectator
could
get
hardly
the
ghost
of
a look.
Both
rider
and
horse
went "flying light."
The
rider's dress
was
thin,
and
fitted close;
he
wore a "round-about,"
and
a skull-cap,
and
tucked
his
pantaloons
into
his
boot-tops
like
a race-rider.
He
carried
no
arms—he carried
nothing
that
was
not
absolutely
necessary,
for
even
the
postage
on
his
literary
freight
was
worth
five
dollars
a letter.
He
got
but
little
frivolous
correspondence
to
carry—his
bag
had
business
letters
in
it, mostly.
His
horse
was
stripped
of
all
unnecessary weight, too.
He
wore a
little
wafer
of
a racing-saddle,
and
no
visible
blanket.
He
wore
light
shoes,
or
none
at
all.
The
little
flat
mail-pockets strapped
under
the
rider's
thighs
would
each
hold
about
the
bulk
of
a child's primer.
They
held
many
and
many
an
important
business
chapter
and
newspaper letter,
but
these
were
written
on
paper
as
airy
and
thin
as
gold-leaf, nearly,
and
thus
bulk
and
weight
were
economized.
The
stage- coach traveled
about
a
hundred
to
a
hundred
and
twenty-five
miles
a
day
(twenty-four hours),
the
pony-rider
about
two
hundred
and
fifty.
There
were
about
eighty
pony-riders
in
the
saddle
all
the
time,
night
and
day, stretching
in
a long, scattering
procession
from
Missouri
to
California,
forty
flying
eastward,
and
forty
toward
the
west,
and
among
them
making
four
hundred
gallant
horses
earn
a stirring
livelihood
and
see
a
deal
of
scenery
every
single
day
in
the
year.
We
had had a
consuming
desire,
from
the
beginning,
to
see
a pony-rider,
but
somehow
or
other
all
that
passed
us
and
all
that
met
us
managed
to
streak
by
in
the
night,
and
so
we
heard
only
a whiz
and
a hail,
and
the
swift
phantom
of
the
desert
was
gone
before
we
could
get
our
heads
out
of
the
windows.
But
now
we
were
expecting
one
along
every
moment,
and
would
see
him
in
broad
daylight. Presently
the
driver exclaims: "HERE
HE
COMES!"
Every
neck
is
stretched further,
and
every
eye
strained wider.
Away
across
the
endless
dead
level
of
the
prairie
a
black
speck
appears
against
the
sky,
and
it
is
plain
that
it
moves. Well, I
should
think
so!
In
a
second
or
two
it
becomes
a
horse
and
rider, rising
and
falling, rising
and
falling—sweeping
toward
us
nearer
and
nearer—growing
more
and
more
distinct,
more
and
more
sharply
defined—nearer
and
still
nearer,
and
the
flutter
of
the
hoofs
comes
faintly
to
the
ear—another
instant
a
whoop
and
a
hurrah
from
our
upper
deck, a
wave
of
the
rider's hand,
but
no
reply,
and
man
and
horse
burst
past
our
excited faces,
and
go
winging
away
like
a belated
fragment
of
a storm!
So
sudden
is
it
all,
and
so
like
a flash
of
unreal fancy,
that
but
for
the
flake
of
white
foam
left
quivering
and
perishing
on
a mail-sack
after
the
vision
had flashed
by
and
disappeared,
we
might
have
doubted
whether
we
had
seen
any
actual
horse
and
man
at
all, maybe.
We
rattled
through
Scott's Bluffs Pass,
by
and
by.
It
was
along
here
somewhere
that
we
first
came
across
genuine
and
unmistakable
alkali
water
in
the
road,
and
we
cordially
hailed
it
as
a first-class curiosity,
and
a
thing
to
be
mentioned
with
eclat
in
letters
to
the
ignorant
at
home.
This
water
gave
the
road
a soapy appearance,
and
in
many
places
the
ground
looked
as
if
it
had been whitewashed. I
think
the
strange
alkali
water
excited
us
as
much
as
any
wonder
we
had
come
upon
yet,
and
I
know
we
felt
very
complacent
and
conceited,
and
better
satisfied
with
life
after
we
had added
it
to
our
list
of
things
which
we
had
seen
and
some
other
people
had not.
In
a small
way
we
were
the
same
sort
of
simpletons
as
those
who
climb unnecessarily
the
perilous
peaks
of
Mont Blanc
and
the
Matterhorn,
and
derive
no
pleasure
from
it
except
the
reflection
that
it
isn't a
common
experience.
But
once
in
a
while
one
of
those
parties
trips
and
comes
darting
down
the
long
mountain-crags
in
a sitting posture,
making
the
crusted
snow
smoke
behind
him,
flitting
from
bench
to
bench,
and
from
terrace
to
terrace, jarring
the
earth
where
he
strikes,
and
still
glancing
and
flitting
on
again,
sticking
an
iceberg
into
himself
every
now
and
then,
and
tearing
his
clothes, snatching
at
things
to
save himself,
taking
hold
of
trees
and
fetching
them
along
with
him,
roots
and
all, starting
little
rocks
now
and
then,
then
big
boulders,
then
acres
of
ice
and
snow
and
patches
of
forest,
gathering
and
still
gathering
as
he
goes, adding
and
still
adding
to
his
massed
and
sweeping
grandeur
as
he
nears
a
three
thousand-foot precipice,
till
at
last
he
waves
his
hat
magnificently
and
rides
into
eternity
on
the
back
of
a
raging
and
tossing avalanche!
This
is
all
very
fine,
but
let
us
not
be
carried
away
by
excitement,
but
ask
calmly,
how
does
this
person
feel
about
it
in
his
cooler
moments
next
day,
with
six
or
seven
thousand
feet
of
snow
and
stuff
on
top
of
him?
We
crossed
the
sand
hills
near
the
scene
of
the
Indian
mail
robbery
and
massacre
of
1856,
wherein
the
driver
and
conductor
perished,
and
also
all
the
passengers
but
one,
it
was
supposed;
but
this
must
have
been a mistake,
for
at
different
times
afterward
on
the
Pacific
coast
I
was
personally acquainted
with
a
hundred
and
thirty-three
or
four
people
who
were
wounded
during
that
massacre,
and
barely
escaped
with
their
lives.
There
was
no
doubt
of
the
truth
of
it—I had
it
from
their
own
lips.
One
of
these
parties
told
me
that
he
kept coming
across
arrow-heads
in
his
system
for
nearly
seven
years
after
the
massacre;
and
another
of
them
told
me
that
he
was
struck
so
literally
full
of
arrows
that
after
the
Indians
were
gone
and
he
could
raise
up
and
examine
himself,
he
could
not
restrain
his
tears,
for
his
clothes
were
completely ruined.
The
most
trustworthy
tradition
avers, however,
that
only
one
man, a
person
named
Babbitt,
survived
the
massacre,
and
he
was
desperately
wounded.
He
dragged
himself
on
his
hands
and
knee
(for
one
leg
was
broken)
to
a
station
several
miles
away.
He
did
it
during
portions
of
two
nights, lying
concealed
one
day
and
part
of
another,
and
for
more
than
forty
hours
suffering unimaginable
anguish
from
hunger,
thirst
and
bodily pain.
The
Indians
robbed
the
coach
of
everything
it
contained,
including
quite
an
amount
of
treasure.