“You’re right,” spoke the express messenger—who was Captain Cricket, again on his way through to Salt Lake. “They’ve bought the ponies and hired the riders, sixty of them. The route’s being divided into runs of seventy-five or a hundred miles, and stocked with horses, every ten or fifteen miles, for change of mounts.”
“Do you think it’ll pay?” asked Gentleman Bob.
“Pay? No! It can’t pay. But it’ll be a big advertisement for this company. They count on showing the Government that the Salt Lake Trail can be travelled quicker and easier than the old Butterfield overland trail through Texas, and on taking the mail and express business away from it.”
“I’d like to ride one of those runs,” asserted Dave, boldly.
Gentleman Bob laughed and cracked his silk lashed whip, of which he was very proud.
“I expect you would, Red,” he agreed. “But this riding a hundred miles or more at a gallop without rest is no kid’s job, you’d find.”
“Billy Cody’ll ride, though, I bet a dollar,” returned Davy.
Gentleman Bob scratched his cheek with his whip stock, and deliberated.
“Well,” he said, “I shouldn’t wonder if he would.”