Connecticut western news., 1874-09-04
Crossing the Plains.

The most curious and perfect of all rthe pony expresses was that which used to run across the plains. Of course you know what I mean by the plains. When I was 8 boy almost the whole country between the Mississippi river and the Pacific ocean was called on the maps, the "Great American Desert, " and in my geography it was described as wide, sandy plain. In my mind it was not unlike the desert of Sahara, with fercer tribes inhabiting it. Schoolboys nowadays have better maps and geographies, and know this coun- try by the names of the great States of Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Me- vada, which have been formed of it. What was desert to a4s is prairie to you, boys what we thought barren sand, you know to be rich soil and you cross it by rail in three days, where we, in stage coaches, used to make the trip in seventeen. The Pacific railway killed the pony express but in it's day the latter was great institution, which would have put to the blush the pony express of the Russians and Tartars, or our own army couriers. It was not 8 government line, either private enter prise started and kept it going on g grand scale. It "used up" and "broke down more than 1000 horses and Indian ponies year. It employed 300 or 1000 couriers and coach drivers and station-keepers, and more than 100 Concord coaches. Every day in the year one of these stages started from the east end and one from the west end of the route, and often as many as fifty were making the trip at the same time. The coach stations were ten miles apart, and there were more than two hundred of them in all.
 The route led from Atchison, Kan., across the plains for five days to Den yer, Col. then five days more up the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City, Utah then seven days more down the mountains to Sacramento City, Gal. At one station the stage coach reached level 5000 feet above the plains, and in the summer months it was the cus- tom of the drivers to stop there ten minutes, not for refreshments, but to allow the passengers the novel pleasure of snow-balling each other in July. In these dreary mountains few persons were then to be met, other than mem- bers of the family of MT. Grizzly Bear, who, if he happens to be hungry, is 8 very unpleasant fellow to travel with. On the plains the enemy most dreaded was the red-skinned tribes, whose rowing bands almost daily attacked the coaches. To repel such attacks, each passenger was required to carry 8 rife as part of his baggage. A "crack driver" was one who could drive four horses at full speed with the reins in his teeth and 8 rife in his hands. Every station was fort, with soldiers to defend it. Often the coaches had to be guarded from station to station by the soldiers, who followed on horse back, and at times the soldiers and passengers were forced to fortify them- selves in the coach and fight until help came by the approach of other coaches. Seventeen days of trip like this would furnish almost enough adventure for 8 lifetime.
 But it was the swift mail-carriers of this line who ran risks and led adven- turous lives full of daring and danger. They ran the gauntlet of the Indians all alone-at night, as we'll as by day and a rough time many of them had of it. Their stations were twenty-five miles apart, and the trips between taem had to be made at full gallop, and in two hours and half, winter or sum- mer, day or night, over plain or noun tain. The horses were hardy Indian ponies, swift and sure of foot but the service killed them very rapidly. The riders were old pioneers, who knew the ways of the Indians and how to avoid them. Still, many of them fell vic tims to their daring and their sense of duty. The long trip of 2. .000 miles oc- cupied the mail-carriers eight days, at rate of more than ten miles an hour 1; but important election news was car ried at still more rapid rate. But at length the harnessed lightning and the iron horse distanced the pony on his own track, and he has gone further West to pastures new.