The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-11-09
PONY EXPRESS RIDING.
Veteran of the Pioneer Mail Service
of the Plains Tells All About 1t.

Denver Republican ,a-@~
There has been a great deal Of
glamour and romance around the pony
express business In the days before the
advent of the railroads, said T. II.
Miller, one Of the corps of riders who
carried the mails across the plains ir.
1858, but the fact Is there was little
else but hard work.
Il commenced to ride for the express
company in 1885, when the route was
laid out and the company organized
and continued to ride until Butterfeld
came up and took the contract. and
the telegraph line was built. My route
was from Egan Cannon to Antelope
Springs, New. The riders had to ride
from sixty to eighty miles. On my
section [ had two relays, and used TO
make the trip in from six to eight
hours. There was always more or
less danger from the Indians, but when
We met them we either ran away from
them, crawled around them or fought
The danger has been greatly magni-
fed. The country was so big and the
number of Indians SO comparatively
small that we had to run into q band
Gefore there was any serious danger,
and then one white man was as good
as ten of them.
'Our stations were not fortified a.
all. They were log cabins or sod
and, though they were burned ovet
and over again, they were rebuilt i'm
mediately and no serious loss or in
convenience to the service was oc-
CaSiOned
I'VE knew just when to expect the
rider from the next station, and the
horses were always ready, so that all
we had to do was to change the mai.
from one horse to another, and we were
off. 1t was the same at the relay sta
tons. The horses were always ready
and the only delay was in taking Il
drink of water or a cup of coffee, and
the mail was on its way.
1T was simply hard riding, a cooi
head, and keen eye that was required
Once in while the men were caught
L have scare or two myself to re-
member the Indians by; but on the
whole the danger was not excessive,
and as for romance, there was nothing
OF it. In 1861 the Indians were espeC-
ially troublesome, and some hard fights
resulted; but as they never remained
long in the same place they could not
do very great deal of harm. t
1.-THE first trial of the pony express
was the delivery of Buchanan's mes
sage in the spring of 1857 Our COM
pany, which had the route from ST.
Joe, via Salt Lake City, was the one
which was afterward operated by Ben
Holiday. Butterfield's route was
through Arizona. We had the common
mountain ponies, and Butterfleld had
high-bred horses. We took the mes
sage right through, and when Butter
field arrived at Mojave he found the
message coming back from San Fran
cisco. Butterfield ran the southern
route until 1860 when he pulled off
and established a line of coaches from
st. Joe to San Francisco via Salt Lake.
In 1861 they commenced to build the
telegraph lines.
81 saw a statement recently that
there are only five survivors of the
pony express riders That is a mis-
take. There are a number of others.
Besides myself L know Of Frank Low,
now in Cripple Creek; Erastus Egan,
son of Maj. Egan, Of Egan Cannon;
James White, John Fisher and Sam
Gibson, the discoverer Of the beds of
asphalt in Utah.
There was always excitement enough
in our work and nearly all Of us had
narrow escapes Of one kind or another.
Ne had to make time, to look out for
Indians, and sometimes to race with
storms which were likely to bar our
progress, but all these things soon be-
came matters of course. We mounted
our ponies and pounded away until we
reached our stations, and then lay down
and waited until our time came next.
1t was hard work sometimes, and pleas
ant at others, very much the same as
the other occupations of human exis-
tence."