Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-06-21
The OId-Time Pony Express.


i'll
However, in a little while all interest was
taken up in stretching our necks and watching
for the "pony-rider the feet messenger who
sped across the continent from St. Joe to Sacra.
mento, 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 little bit of a man
brimful of spirit and endurance. No matter
what time of day or night his watch came on
and no matter whether it was winter or sum-
mer, raining, showing, hailing, or sleeting or
whether his beat was a level straight road or
a crazy trail over mountain crags and preci-
pces, or whether it led through peaceful re-
glons, or regions that swarmed with hostile In-
dams, he must always be ready to leap into
the saddle and be off like the wind. There was
no ldiing time for pony rider on duty. He
rode forty miles without stopping, by daylight
moonlight, starlight, or through the blackness
OF darkness, just as 1t happened. He rode a
splendid horse, that was born for racer, and
fed and lodged like gentleman, kept him at
bis utmost speed for ten miles, and then, as he
came crashing up to the station where stood
TWO men, holding an impatient steed, the trans
Ter OF rider and mail bag was done ere the
twlnkhng Of an eye, and away few the
eager pair, and were out of sight before the
spectator could get hardly the ghost of a look.
Both rider and the horse went flying light"
The riders dress was thin and fitted close. he
wore roundabout" and "skull-cap /" and
tucked bis pantaloons into his boot tops, like A
race rider. He carried no arms-he carried
nothing that was not absolutely necessary. for
even ms postage on his literary freight was
worth two dollars an ounce He got but little
frivolous correspondence to carry: his bao had
business letters in it mostly. His horse was
stripped ofall unnecessary weight too. He
wore little wafer of a racing-saddle, and no
visible blanket. He wore light shoes, or none
at all. The little fiat mail pockets, strapped
under the riders thighs, would each hold
ABOUT the bulk OF chid's primer They held
many ana many an important business chap
Ter and newspaper letter. But these were
wrote on paper as airy and thin as gold leaf
nearly, and thus bulk and weight were econo-
mlzed. The stage coach Travelled about a hmm
dred to a hundred and twenty-five miles a dav
{twenty,iour hours); the pony-rider about two
hundred and nifty. There were about eighty
pony-riders in saddle all the time, nigh. and
day, stretching in long, scattering procession
from Missouri to California-forty fying east.
ward, and forty flying to the west, making four
hundred gallant horses earning stirring liyeli.
hood, and see deal of scenery every single day
in the year
We had had consuming desire from the be-
ginning 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 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 mo-
ment, and would see him in broad daylight
Presently the driver exclaims:
Here he comes ?"
Every neck is stretched further, and every eve
strained wider. Away across the endless dead
level OF the prairie, black speck appears
against the sky, and it is plain that it moves
wen, should think sol In second or two il
becomes horse and rider rising and falling
weeping toward us nearer and nearer-growing
mort ana more sharply distinct, more and more
sanatply dehned-nearer and nearer, and the
nut.er Oh the hoofs comes family to the car
another instant whoop and a hurrah from our
upper oeck, a wave of the riders hand, but nc
reply ana man and horse burst past our ex.
fragment of a storml -'''e'
So sudden is it all, and so like fash of nm.
real fancy, that, for the fake of white foam ieit
quivering and perishing on a mail sack. aft ts
the vision had flashed by ard disappeared W,
might have doubted whether we had seen an,
actual horse and man at all, may be.