“Come along with me, Billy,” said he, “I'll give you a good lay-out. I want you with me.”
“I don't know that I would like to go as far west as that again,” I replied, “but I do want to ride the Pony Express once more; there's some life in that.”
“Yes, that's so; but it will soon shake the life out of you,” said he. “However, if that's what you've got your mind set on, you had better come to Atchison with me and see Mr. Russell, who, I'm pretty certain, will give you a situation.”
I met Mr. Russell there and asked him for employment as a Pony Express rider; he gave me a letter to Mr. Slade, who was then the stage-agent for the division extending from Julesburg to Rocky Ridge. Slade had his headquarters at Horseshoe Station, thirty-six miles west of Fort Laramie, and I made the trip thither in company with Simpson and his train.
Almost the first person I saw after dismounting from my horse was Slade. I walked up to him and presented Mr. Russell's letter, which he hastily opened and read. With a sweeping glance of his eye he took my measure from head to foot, and then said:—
“My boy, you are too young for a Pony Express rider. It takes men for that business.”
“I rode two months last year on Bill Trotter's division, sir, and filled the bill then; and I think I am better able to ride now,” said I.
“What! are you the boy that was riding there, and was called
the youngest rider on the road?”
“I am the same boy,” I replied, confident that everything was
now all right for me.
“I have heard of you before. You are a year or so older now, and I think you can stand it. I'll give you a trial, anyhow, and if you weaken you can come back to Horseshoe Station and tend stock.”