The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1874-08-29
THE OLD WAY OF CROSSING THE
PLAINS.


pony expresses was that which used to run
across the plains. OF course. you know
what mean by the plains. When l was a
boy, almost the whole country between the
called, on the maps, the "great American
DESERT" and in my geography it was de-
scribed as wide, sandy plain. In my
mind it was not unlike the desert of Sa-
hara, with fiercer tribes inhab1tng it.
School-boys nowadays have better maps
and biographies, and know this country by
the names of the great States of Kansas,
Nebraska, Colorado, and Nevada, which
have been formed of it. What was de-
sert to as, 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
Railroad killed the pony express; but in
its 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. 1t was not a
government line, either; private enterprise
started and kept it going on a grand scale.
1t "used up" and "broke down. more
than thousand horses and Indian ponies
year. 1t employed nine or ten hundred
couriers and coach-drivers and station-keep-
ers, and more than one hundred Concord
coaches. Every day in the year one of
these stages started from the east 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, Missouri, across the
plains for five days to Denver, Colorado;
tains to Salt Lake City; then seven days
more down the mountains to Sacramento
City, California. At one station the stage
coach reached level of five thousand feet
above the plains, and in the summer months
it was the custom of the drivers to stop
there ten minutes, not for refreshments,
but to allow the passengers the novel pleas
ure of snow balling each other in July.
In these dreary mountains few persons
were then to be met, ether than members
of the family of Mr. Grizzly Bear, who, if
he happens to be hungry, is very I'M
pleasant 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 rifle as part of his bag
gage. A "crack driver" was one who
could drive four horses at full speed with
the rens in his teeth and rifle in his
hands. Every station was a fort, with SOL
diers 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 themselves in the
coach and fight until help came by the
approach of other coaches. Seventeen
days Of a trip like this would almost fur
nish enough adventure for life time.
But it was the swift mail couriers of this
line who ran risks and led adventurous
lives full of daring and danger. They ran
the gauntlet of the Indians all alone,-at
night, as well as by day,-and rough
time many of them had of it. Their sta
tions were twenty five miles apart, and the
trips between them had to be made at
full gallop, and in two hours and ahalf,
winter or summer, day or night, over plain
or mountain. 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 victims to
their daring and their sense of duty. The
long trip of two thousand miles occupied
the mail carriers eight days, at the rate of
more than ten miles an hour; but import
ant election news was carried at 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.-From " The
Pony Erpress," in 81. Nicholas for Septem-
Der,