The St. Johns herald., 1894-03-15
A MEMORABLE RACE.
It Was @ Long One and for an
 Enormous Stake.
Western Post Riders Travel Against Time from the Pacific Coast to the Mis- souri River for Two Hundred
 Thousand Dollars.

Thousand Dollars.
 In 1850 St. Joseph, Mo, was the ter minus of railroad communication, says a writer in the Savannah News. Be yond, the stage coach, the saddle horse, the OK team ard prairie schoon- CT were the means of transportation thence to the Rockies and the Pacific slope. In tho winter of 1S59-G0 there was Wall street lobby at Washington trying to get five million dollars for car rying the mail overland for one year between New York and San Francisco. The proposition was extremely cheeky, and William II. Russell, backed by Sec retary of War Floyd, resolved to give the lobby cold shower bath. He therefore offered to bet two hundred thousand dollars that he could put on a mail from Sacramento Cal, to St. Jo- seph, Mo, that would make the dis tance - nineteen hundred and fifty miles-in ten days. The bet was taken and April fixed upon as the day for starting.
 Mr. Russell called upon his partner and general manager of mail route business upon the plains, A. B. Miller, and asked if he could perform the feat.
 Miller replied: "Yes, sir, will do it, and by pony express"
 To accomplish this, Miller purchased three hundred of the feetest horses he could find in the west, and employed one hundred and twenty-five men. Eighty of these men were to be post riders. These he selected with refer ence to their light weight and known courage. It was very essential that the horses be loaded as light as pos sible; therefore the lighter the man the better. It was necessary that some portions of the route should be made at the rate of twenty miles an hour. The horses were stationed from ten to twenty miles apart and each rider would be required to ride sixty miles. For the change of animals and the shifting of the mails, two minutes were allowed. Where there were no stage stations at proper distances, tents sufficient to accommodate one man and two horses would be pro- vided. Indians would sometimes give chase, but their cayuse ponies made but sorry show in their stern chase after Miller's thoroughbreds, many of which could make a single mile in one minute and forty-six seconds.
 All arrangements being completed, signal gun on the steamer Sacramento proclaimed the meridian of 8th April, 1SGG-the hour for starting Border Rufian. Mir. Miller's private saddle horse, with Billy Baker in the saddle, bounded away toward the foothills Of the Sierra Nevada, and made his ride of twenty miles in forty nine minutes. The snows were deep in the mountains and one rider was lost for several hours in a snowstorm; and after the Salt Lake valley was reached additional speed became nee essary to reach St. Joseph on time. From there all went well until the Platte was to be crossed at Julesburg. The river was up and running rapidly, but into the flood the rider plunged his horse, only, however, to mire and drown in the quicksand. The courier succeeded in reaching the shore with the mail bag in hand, and travelled ten miles on foot to reach the next relay.
 Johnny Fry, popular rider of his day, was to make the finish. He had sixty miles to ride and six hours to do it in. When the last courier arrived at the sixty mile post, out from St. Joseph, he was one hour behind time. A heavy rain had set in and the road was slip pery. Two hundred thousand dollars turned upon a single minute. Fry had just three hours and thirty minutes in which to win. This was the finish of the longest race for the largest stake ever run in America. When the time for his arrival was nearly up at least five thousand people stood upon the river bank, with eyes turned toward the woods from which the horse and rider shortly emerged into the open country in the rear of Elmwood, one mile from the finish. Tick! tick! tick. went thousands of watches. The time was nearly up-but seven minutes re- mained! Hark! A shout goes up from the assembled throng: ''He comes! He comes!' The noble little man! ''Sylph," the daughter of Little Arthur" darts like an arrow from the bow and makes the run of the last mile in 1850, landing on the ferryboat with five minutes and ten seconds to spare!
 Rabbit Law in England.