The Story of the Pony Express

by Glenn D. Bradley

[[10]] Exact figures are not obtainable for the west bound mail but it was probably not so heavy.

At this time--Sept., 1861--the telegraph had been extended from the Missouri to Fort Kearney, Nebraska, and letter pouches from the Pony Express were sent by overland stage from Kearney to Atchison. Messages of grave concern were wired as soon as this station was reached.

[[11]] These were executive divisions and not to be confused with the riders' divisions. The latter were merely the stations separating each man's "run."

[[12]] Slade was afterward hanged by vigilantes in Virginia City, Montana. The authentic story of his life surpasses in romance and tragedy most of the pirate tales of fiction.

[[13]] The dispatch was taken from the main line to the Colorado capital by special service. Denver, it will be remembered, was not on the regular "Pony route," which ran north of that city. There was then no telegraph in operation west of the Missouri River in Kansas or Nebraska.

[[14]] Roughing It.