“How do you figure that?” asked the bandit.
Billy tapped his Colt’s revolver.
“I may be little, but I can shoot as hard as if I were General Jackson,” he warned.
“I expect you can, an’ I reckon you would,” chuckled the bandit, tickled with Billy’s nerve; and he let him ride on.
So it was not long before “Pony Express Bill” was drawing $150 a month pay, which was the top wages paid on the road.
Meanwhile Dave felt that his work at Fort Laramie was rather tame. It was just the same thing day after day, with only ordinary pay, and three meals a day, and a good bed at night, and a lot of friends—and—and—that seemed about all, except that he was learning all the time from books and from the people about him; and he knew that he was growing inside as well as outside. To tell the truth, he was doing first-rate and getting ahead, and was being given more and more responsibility and showing that he could carry it; but of course he wanted to prove his pluck by riding pony express. That seemed bigger—whether it really was or not.
His chance came, as it generally does to everybody who waits for it and holds himself ready. All the summer there had been talk among the army officers at the post and between them and the stage passengers who passed through of affairs in the East, where a presidential campaign was being hotly carried on. It appeared, by the talk and by the papers, that a man named Abraham Lincoln was a candidate of the North, and that Stephen A. Douglas was a candidate of the South, and that if Mr. Lincoln was elected South Carolina and other Southern States threatened to withdraw from the Union. They claimed that each State had the right of governing itself, and that States and Territories should decide for themselves whether or not they would own slaves within their borders.
The question as to whether Kansas should be “slave” or “free” had caused fighting when that territory was being settled; and Billy Cody’s father, who was a “Free State” man, had been so badly stabbed that he never recovered. The settlement of Nebraska Territory also had brought on much bitter feeling between North and South—for the North was against the extension of slavery. So was Abraham Lincoln. The army officers at Fort Laramie, some of whom were Northerners and some Southerners, declared that the election of Lincoln would mean war; according to the Northern officers, if the Southern States tried to withdraw; according to the Southern officers, if the Southern States were not permitted to withdraw.
The election was to be held on November 6, and it would be November 10 before the news of who won could reach Laramie by the Pony Express. That was a long time at the best when such important events were occurring; but even at that Davy (who was as impatient as anybody) found that he might be disappointed, for he was ordered by Captain Brown to take the stage west in the morning and go up the line to Horseshoe Station on Government business.