Bisbee daily review., 1903-02-13

surprisingly lOw-that is, if we were able to keep our promise as to the de livery of a letter in something like eight days.
 The expense at the outset was enor- nous. We bought, in round numbers | six hundred hardy, healthy ponies, | sure footed and well tried. We em- | plOyed al the brisk, daredevil young | men of good habits whom we could | find; We built post houses every ten | miles, unless it Chanced that our stage i posts would serve the purpose The ! ponies were stationed at these post houses, with bedding for extra riders. | food arrangements, and Q keeper in charge. We paid each of our riders from hundred dollars to hundred and twenty dollars a month" Col. Majors used to tell the story of how he met William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill" and set him to work Young Cody was practically the head of the family, his father having died when "Bill' was a boy, and it was from Ma jors that he earned his first money. , He carried messages from one freight ing outfit to another, and at that time these outfits were strung all the way : was one of the first to have a place as rider rendered him.
 Will Cody was one of the best men We ever had" MT. Majors often said. ! He was iii love with the work, and : although it was seen that the exposure was telling upon him, entering into it as he did, he never whimpered up to the time other plans took him out of it. ] H. F,fNv Al,,. weather, and sometimes when we
 were not looking for him there would be a whirl of dust. a shout, and 1 Cody would be in ahead of schedule, before the change pony was out in waiting for him."
 1 No pony express ever started away ! from the Missouri river without the l leather parcel bags, filled with letters
 and precious packages, locked tight to be opened at the far other end 1 Highwaymen were not feared, for the reason that, as a rule. the money value
 of the mail, from the standpoint of J the highWayman, was not much. But ] the Indians were source of danger.
 Col Majors, who was so closely identified with this strange enterprise, was, in the heyday Of his career. the
 most important man of his type in the country. He was. the moving, energetic figure in the establishment of a stage
 company that ran the only great unin- terrupted line across the plains. The
 company built a superb outfit of Con
 cord coaches at a cost of about $500
 apiece. There was a small subsidy
 for a large sum applying east of Salt
 Lake; beyond that another company carried the mail The first of these
 coaches left AtchisOn, Kansas, in the l fall of 1859. and carried a great mum Der of passengers, capacity being con sidered. This inc, famous in it's ! time. took the South Pass course by Fort FetteTman and Fort aramie along the North rIatte and Sweetwat CT to Fort Bridger, over Green river
 through Echo canyon, over the hills and down Emigration canyon to Salt Lake. There was a branch Tuncin ; , over from Julesburg to Denver, but at a later period the branchtwas ais, continued and the main line ran to the
 Colorado capital The post stations
 built at regular intervals for this ser vice were used in many instances by
 the subsequent pony express.
 | There were whispers of western
 telegraph and western railroads at
 that time, but Majors and his men
 went on in their immense work until
 they were actually driven from it by
 electricity and steam.
 ''The pony express went first" said the Colonel, "and it went in a hurry.
 We kept it going as long as we could,
 but when the telegraph came it snapp-
 ed the life out of the thing almost in a day. What was the best thing we ever did with our pony service2 Well,
 in the first place, we proved that it could be done, that our western brain
 and brawn were equal to the task. Then we laid out way for the rail
 roads, for the great lines of today fol
 low our tracks We built up business
 too so that there was enough of it,
 when the raj roads and wires came, 10 lend support to both. Of specific
 achievements I think that the most
 notable was the delivery of President Buchanan's last message. We were eX-
 pecting it and had planned to break
 records by landing it in San Francis co under eight days. When the docu- ment was received by wire at St. Joe We had it put on this paper. The best ponies and the best men were ready, for all along the line word had gone forward that we were out with the
 Presidents message It was much
 under eight days when the message was all over San Francisco