Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1898-09-17
TIE PONY EXPRESS
Mark Twain's Description Oh WAL
Delivery In Early Times
Out West.


In a little while all interest was
taken up in stretching II necks
and watching for the pony rider-the
fleet messenger who sped across tht
continent from st. Joe to Sacramento,
carving letters 1900 miles in eight
DAYS! Think of that for perishabIe
horse and human flesh and blood to
do!
The pony rider was usually a little
bit of a man, brimful of spirit ana en-
durauce. No matter what time OF the
day or night his watch came on and no
matter whether it was winter or sum
mer, raining. showing. haiIing or sleet-
ing. or whether his beat was a level
straight road or a crazy trail over
mountain crags and precipices, or
whether it led through peaceful re
gions, or regions that swarmed with
hostile Indians, he must be always
ready to leap into the saddle and be
of like the wind. There was nc idling
time for a pony rider on duty. He
rode 30 miles without stopping, by day
light. moonlight, starlight or through
the blackness of durkness-iust as 1t
happened. He rode a splendid horse
that was born for a racer and fed
and lodged like a gentleman; kept
him at his utmost speed for ten miles
and then, as he came crashing up to
the station where stood two men hold
ing fast a fresh impatient steed, the
transfer of rider and mailbag was
made in the twinkling of an eye, and
away flew the eager pair and were out
OF sight before the spectator could
get hardly the ghost of a look.
The stage coach travelled about 100
TO 1926 miles a day Ca hours), the pony
rider about $50. There were about 50
pony riders in the saddle all the time,
light and day, stretching in a long
scattering procession from Missouri TO
California, 40 flying eastward and 40
toward the west, and among them
making 400 gallant horses earn a stir.
ring livelihood and see a deal of scenery
every single day in the year. We have
had a consuming desire from the be-
ginning to see a pony rider, but, some-
how or other, all that passed us and
all that met us managed to streak by in
the night, and so we heard only a
whizz and a hail, and the swift phan-
tom of the desert was gone before we
could get our heads out of the win.
dows. But now we were expecting
one along every moment, and would
see him in broad daylight. Presently
the driver exclaims:
Here he comes"
Every neck is stretched further and
every eye is strained wider. Away
across the endless dead level of the
prairie a black speck appears against
the sky and It is plain that it moves.
Well, | should think So, In a second
or two 1t becomes n horse and rider
rising and falling, rising and falling
sweeping toward us nearer and nearer
growing more and more distinct.
more and more sharply defned-near-
or and still nearer, and the futter Of
the hoofs family to the ear
another instant a whoop and hurrah
rom our upper deck, a wave of the
hand, but no reply, and a man
and horse burst past our excited faces
and go winging away like a belatcd
fragment of a storm.
SO sudden is it all and so like a flash
ct unreal fancy that but for the flake
Ct white foam left quivering and per.
on a mail sack after the vision
lad flashed by and disappeared, we
night have doubted whether We had
any actual horse and man at all
Mark Twain's "Roughing It."