The line was frequently used by the British Government in forwarding its Asiatic correspondence to London. In 1860, a report of the activities of the English fleet off the coast of China was sent through from San Francisco eastward over this route. For the transmission of these dispatches that Government paid one hundred and thirty-five dollars Pony Express charges.
Nor did the commercial houses of the Pacific Coast cities appear to mind a little expense in forwarding their business letters. Mr. Root says there would often be twenty-five one dollar "Pony" stamps and the same number of Government stamps--a total in postage of twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents--on a single envelope. Not much frivolity passed through these mails.
Pony Express riders received an average salary of from one hundred dollars to one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month. A few whose rides were particularly dangerous or who had braved unusual dangers received one hundred and fifty dollars. Station men and their assistants were paid from fifty to one hundred dollars monthly.
Of the eighty riders usually in the service, half were always riding in either direction, East and West. The average "run" was seventy-five miles, the men going and coming over their respective divisions on each succeeding day. Yet there were many exceptions to this rule, as will be shown later. At the outset, although facilities for shorter relays had been provided, it was planned to run each horse twenty-five miles with an average of three horses to the rider; but it was soon found that a horse could rarely continue at a maximum speed for so great a distance. Consequently, it soon became the practice to change mounts every ten or twelve miles or as nearly that as possible. The exact distance was governed largely by the nature of the country. While this shortening of the relay necessitated transferring the mochila many more times on each trip, it greatly facilitated the schedule; for it was at once seen that the average horse or pony in the Express service could be crowded to the limit of its speed over the reduced distance.
One of the station-keeper's most important duties was to have a fresh horse saddled and bridled a half hour before the Express was due. Only two minutes time was allowed for changing mounts. The rider's approach was watched for with keen anxiety. By daylight he could generally be seen in a cloud of dust, if in the desert or prairie regions. If in the mountains, the clear air made it possible for the station men to detect his approach a long way off, provided there were no obstructions to hide the view. At night the rider would make his presence known by a few lusty whoops. Dashing up to the station, no time was wasted. The courier would already have loosed his mochila, which he tossed ahead for the keeper to adjust on the fresh horse, before dismounting. A sudden reining up of his foam-covered steed, and "All's well along the road, Hank!" to the station boss, and he was again mounted and gone, usually fifteen seconds after his arrival. Nor was there any longer delay when a fresh rider took up the "run."
Situated at intervals of about two hundred miles were division points[[11]] in charge of locally important agents or superintendents. Here were kept extra men, animals, and supplies as a precaution against the raids of Indians, desperadoes, or any emergency likely to arise. Division agents had considerable authority; their pay was as good as that received by the best riders. They were men of a heroic and even in some instances, desperate character, in spite of their oath of service. In certain localities much infested with horse thievery and violence it was necessary to have in charge men of the fight-the-devil-with-fire type in order to keep the business in operation. Noted among this class of Division agents, with headquarters at the Platte Crossing near Fort Kearney, was Jack Slade[[12]], who, though a good servant of the Company, turned out to be one of the worst "bad" men in the history of the West. He had a record of twenty-six "killings" to his credit, but he kept his Division thoroughly purged of horse thieves and savage marauders, for he knew how to "get" his man whenever there was trouble.
The schedule was at first fixed at ten days for eight months of the year and twelve days during the winter season, but this was soon lowered to eight and ten days respectively. An average speed of ten miles an hour including stops had to be maintained on the summer schedule. In the winter the run was sustained at eight miles an hour; deep snows made the latter performance the more difficult of the two.
The best record made by the Pony Express was in getting President Lincoln's inaugural speech across the continent in March, 1861. This address, outlining as it did the attitude of the new Chief Executive toward the pending conflict, was anticipated with the deepest anxiety by the people on the Pacific Coast. Evidently inspired by the urgency of the situation, the Company determined to surpass all performances. Horses were led out, in many cases, two or three miles from the stations, in order to meet the incoming riders and to secure the supreme limit of speed and endurance on this momentous trip. The document was carried through from St. Joseph to Sacramento--1966 miles--in just seven days and seventeen hours, an average speed of ten and six-tenths miles an hour. And this by flesh and blood, pounding the dirt over the plains, mountains, and deserts! The best individual performance on this great run was by "Pony Bob" Haslam who galloped the one hundred and twenty miles from Smith's Creek to Fort Churchill in eight hours and ten minutes, an average of fourteen and seven-tenths miles per hour. On this record-breaking trip the message was carried the six hundred and seventy-five miles between St. Joseph and Denver[[13]] in sixty-nine hours; the last ten miles of this leg of the journey being ridden in thirty-one minutes. Today, but few overland express trains, hauled by giant locomotives over heavy steel rails on a rock-ballasted roadbed average more than thirty miles per hour between the Missouri and the Pacific Coast.
The news of the election of Lincoln in November 1860, and President Buchanan's last message a month later were carried through in eight days.
Late in the winter and early in the spring of 1861, just prior to the beginning of the war, many good records were made with urgent Government dispatches. News of the firing upon Fort Sumter was taken through in eight days and fourteen hours. From then on, while the Pony Express service continued, the business men and public officials of California began giving prize money to the Company, to be awarded those riders who made the best time carrying war news. On one occasion they raised a purse of three hundred dollars for the star rider when a pouch containing a number of Chicago papers full of information from the South arrived at Sacramento a day ahead of schedule.