“He made me come back wid Firebug, Mr. Shagbark,” explained the servant.
Finally, after a score of questions, Jethro made plain what had happened. Every one listened with breathless attention. When it was understood, Shagbark chuckled:
“So the younker took the place of the Express Rider, eh? Wal, he’ll git through all right, but I say that’s jest like him; there’s good stuff in that chap.”
CHAPTER XIV
AN ALARMING SITUATION
Meanwhile Alden Payne had entered upon the most stirring experience of his life.
In a twinkling, as may be said, he was transformed from an emigrant plodding his way across the continent to a Pony Express Rider, whose sole effort was to skim over the dangerous ground at the topmost speed to which his swift pony could be forced. “Get ahead in spite of everything,” was the motto of those daring fellows.
It was a sudden impulse that led the youth to make this perilous venture, but it is almost certain that, had he been given hours in which to consider the plan, he would have done precisely what he did do.
It is in the momentous crises of a person’s career that he often becomes sensible to trifles which would pass unnoticed at other times. The moment Alden set off with the small rifle of the stricken rider grasped in his left hand and the reins held loosely in his right, he noticed several things. He knew he was twenty or thirty pounds heavier than Dick Lightfoot. The saddle, although of the same kind as his own, still felt a little different. The stirrup straps were an inch or two shorter than those to which he was accustomed, but he decided to waste no time in shifting the buckles. The rifle was lighter than his weapon, for we know those men sacrificed everything possible to gain lightness. If an anxious correspondent offered a big price to the carrier to accept a thin missive after the pouch had been made up, he was refused and obliged to wait for the next messenger.
The riders of course used spurs though they were not often necessary. The animal knew what was expected of him and gave it willingly. Covered with foam and dust, with his sides heaving, he thundered up to the station where rest was awaiting him, after which he was ready to bound away on the wings of the wind again. Often his master passed through the most frightful perils without shouting a command to his pony. A pressure of the knee, the gentlest pull on the rein, or perhaps a soft exclamation was enough: he obeyed with unerring instinct. As Dick Lightfoot declared, the animals came to know the routes better than their riders. When Theodore Rand covered the 110 miles between Box Elder and Julesburg, he always did it by night.