As anticipated, the amount of business transacted over this line was not sufficient to pay one-tenth of the expenses, to say nothing about the amount of capital invested. In this, however, we were not disappointed, for we knew, as stated in the outset, that it could not be made a paying institution, and was undertaken solely to prove that the route over which it ran could be made a permanent thoroughfare for travel at all seasons of the year, proving, as far as the paramount object was concerned, a complete success.
Two important events transpired during the term of the Pony's existence; one was the carrying of President Buchanan's last message to Congress, in December, 1860, from the Missouri River to Sacramento, a distance of two thousand miles, in eight days and some hours. The other was the carrying of President Lincoln's inaugural address of March 4, 1861, over the same route in seven days and, I think, seventeen hours, being the quickest time, taking the distance into consideration, on record in this or any other country, as far as I know.
One of the most remarkable feats ever accomplished was made by F. X. Aubery, who traveled the distance of 800 miles, between Santa Fé, N. M., and Independence, Mo., in five days and thirteen hours. This ride, in my opinion, in one respect was the most remarkable one ever made by any man. The entire distance was ridden without stopping to rest, and having a change of horses only once in every one hundred or two hundred miles. He kept a lead horse by his side most of the time, so that when the one he was riding gave out entirely, he changed the saddle to the extra horse, left the horse he had been riding and went on again at full speed.
At the time he made this ride, in much of the territory he passed through he was liable to meet hostile Indians, so that his adventure was daring in more ways than one. In the first place, the man who attempted to ride 800 miles in the time he did took his life in his hands. There is perhaps not one man in a million who could have lived to finish such a journey.
Mr. Aubery was a Canadian Frenchman, of low stature, short limbs, built, to use a homely simile, like a jack-screw, and was in the very zenith of his manhood, full of pluck and daring.
It was said he made this ride upon a bet of $1,000 that he could cover the distance in eight days.
One year previous to this, in 1852, he made a bet he could do the same distance in ten days. The result was he traveled it in a little over eight days, hence his bet he could make the ride in 1853 in eight days, the result of that trip showing he consumed little more than half that time.
I was well acquainted with and did considerable business with Aubery during his years of freighting. I met him when he was making his famous ride, at a point on the Santa Fé Road called Rabbit Ear. He passed my train at a full gallop without asking a single question as to the danger of Indians ahead of him.
After his business between St. Louis and Santa Fé ceased, his love for adventure and his daring enterprise prompted him to make a trip from New Mexico to California with sheep, which he disposed of at good prices, and returned to New Mexico.