It made no difference whether the sun was shining overhead or the stars twinkled faintly or not at all. The rain might descend in torrents, hail, snow and sleet might batter horse and rider like fine birdshot, and the temperature might drop below zero, or throb with heat, still rider and horse who were like one creature must plunge on and ever on, so long as muscle and nerve could stand the terrific strain.[B]
[B] One of the Express Riders made the run from St. Joe to Denver, 625 miles, in two days and twenty-one hours. Within five miles of Guittard’s Station, Will Bolton’s horse was disabled. He abandoned the animal and with the mail pouches slung over his shoulder, trotted to the next station, remounted and completed his run with only a small loss of time. J. H. Keetley, now a prosperous merchant of Salt Lake City, was an Express Rider from the opening to the close of the service. He once rode 300 miles in twenty-four hours, stopping only to change horses. Robert Haslam, remembered through the West as “Pony Bob,” is a genial, prosperous citizen of Chicago, associated in the management of the Congress Hall organization. In his younger days he performed many astonishing feats as an Express Rider. He was twice wounded by Indians, made the speediest 190 miles on record, and for six months covered daily the run between Reno, Nevada, and Virginia City, a distance of twenty-three miles, well within an hour. He used fifteen horses on each run. How those old timers could ride and if necessary fight! I add the following extract from an interesting letter received by me from Mr. Haslam:
“Chicago, Dec. 28, 1908.
“Very few of the old Pony Express Riders ever carried a rifle of any description from start to finish. I once purchased a Spencer from a deserter from Fort Bridger, paying him $20. This was in 1861. The weapon was a breech-loader with seven shots. I always carried a Colt’s revolver with two cylinders, and often had to use both of them. I made sure that the pistol was fully loaded when I started. Caps were employed, and the revolver was loaded by means of a ramrod attached to it. After the Spencer came the Sharp, seven-shooter, repeating breech-loader with cartridges. My Spencer weighed about seven and a half pounds, but I never used it on the Express. When I was messenger from Salt Lake to Denver in the service of Wells Fargo & Co. I carried a short double-barreled shotgun with buckshot and later a Winchester 16-shooter. When in the government service in Porto Rico and the Philippines, all the weapon I carried was a Colt’s improved double action revolver.”
Now Alden Payne would not have had a tithe of the sense with which we have credited him all along, if he had forgotten for one moment the peril which he faced from the moment he came up with the inanimate form of Dick Lightfoot. The turning back of Jethro Mix, and the shift from one saddle to the other had taken only two or three minutes. In the mean time, if there was any danger of thoughtlessness, it was removed by the sight of that feathered shaft protruding from the back of the poor fellow who lay on the flinty earth.
The reasonable supposition was that the redskin who had discharged the missile was in a position to drive others with equal deadliness and that he would do so. In all probability there were more than one of them. Why the African youth was permitted to ride away unmolested, and Alden Payne to climb into the saddle without harm would be hard to explain, but such was the fact.
Alden kept looking across the gorge and at all the points from which a missile might come. He saw nothing which was not strange, but before he could give the word to Dick an arrow whizzed in front of his face so close that he blinked. Rather curiously the emotion roused by this occurrence was that of flaming rage. We know Alden had a quick temper. Had it been otherwise, he would not have dared to do what he did the next minute.
When he glanced across the ravine, he saw his man, or rather two men. The warriors had risen from behind an immense rock, the head and shoulders of one showing while the other stood fully revealed in the open. It looked as if he despised the youth and was challenging him to do his worst.
That one quick glance showed Alden that the redskin thus exposed was fitting another arrow to the string of his bow. His companion seemed to be acting the part of spectator.
“Two can play at that game!” muttered Alden, bringing the rifle of Dick Lightfoot to his shoulder and sighting at the miscreant. He had noticed the straggling black hair of his foe, which dangled about his shoulders, his naked chest and deerskin shirt. He was of squat form, sturdy and enduring of frame, and a foe not to be despised by anyone.