It seems like lying to state that at the age of twelve Billy Cody began to take rank among the world’s great horsemen, and yet he rode on the pony express, which closed in 1861, his fourteenth year.
The trail from the Missouri over the plains, the deserts and the mountains into California was about two thousand miles through a country infested with gangs of professional robbers and hostile Indian tribes. The gait of the riders averaged twelve miles an hour, which means a gallop, to allow for the slow work in mountain passes. There were one hundred ninety stations at which the riders changed ponies without breaking their run, and each must be fit and able for one hundred miles a day in time of need. Pony Bob afterward had contracts by which he rode one hundred miles a day for a year.
Now, none of the famous riders of history, like Charles XII, of Sweden; Dick, King of Natal, or Dick Turpin, of England, made records to beat the men of the pony express, and in that service Billy was counted a hero. He is outclassed by the Cossack Lieutenant Peschkov, who rode one pony at twenty-eight miles a day the length of the Russian empire, from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg, and by Kit Carson who with one horse rode six hundred miles in six days. There are branches of horsemanship, too, in which he would have been proud to take lessons from Lord Lonsdale, or Evelyn French, but Cody is, as far as I have seen, of all white men incomparable for grace, for beauty of movement, among the horsemen of the modern world.
But to turn back to the days of the boy rider.
“One day,” he writes, “when I galloped into my home station I found that the rider who was expected to take the trip out on my arrival had gotten into a drunken row the night before, and had been killed.... I pushed on ... entering every relay station on time, and accomplished the round trip of three hundred twenty-two miles back to Red Buttes without a single mishap, and on time. This stands on the record as being the longest pony express journey ever made.”
One of the station agents has a story to tell of this ride, made without sleep, and with halts of only a few minutes for meals. News had leaked out of a large sum of money to be shipped by the express, and Cody, expecting robbers, rolled the treasure in his saddle blanket, filling the official pouches with rubbish. At the best place for an ambush two men stepped out on to the trail, halting him with their muskets. As he explained, the pouches were full of rubbish, but the road agents knew better. “Mark my words,” he said as he unstrapped, “you’ll hang for this.”
“We’ll take chances on that, Bill.”
“If you will have them, take them!” With that he hurled the pouches, and as robber number one turned to pick them up, robber number two had his gun-arm shattered with the boy’s revolver-shot. Then with a yell he rode down the stooping man, and spurring hard, got out of range unhurt. He had saved the treasure, and afterward both robbers were hanged by vigilantes.
Once far down a valley ahead Cody saw a dark object above a boulder directly on his trail, and when it disappeared he knew he was caught in an ambush. Just as he came into range he swerved wide to the right, and at once a rifle smoked from behind the rock. Two Indians afoot ran for their ponies while a dozen mounted warriors broke from the timbered edge of the valley, racing to cut him off. One of these had a war bonnet of eagle plumes, the badge of a chief, and his horse, being the swiftest, drew ahead. All the Indians were firing, but the chief raced Cody to head him off at a narrow pass of the valley. The boy was slightly ahead, and when the chief saw that the white rider would have about thirty yards to spare he fitted an arrow, drawing for the shot. But Cody, swinging round in the saddle, lashed out his revolver, and the chief, clutching at the air, fell, rolling over like a ball as he struck the ground. At the chief’s death-cry a shower of arrows from the rear whizzed round the boy, one slightly wounding his pony who, spurred by the pain, galloped clear, leaving the Indians astern in a ten mile race to the next relay.
After what seems to the reader a long life of adventure, Mr. Cody had just reached the age of twenty-two when a series of wars broke out with the Indian tribes, and he was attached to the troops as a scout. A number of Pawnee Indians who thought nothing of this white man, were also serving. They were better trackers, better interpreters and thought themselves better hunters. One day a party of twenty had been running buffalo, and made a bag of thirty-two head when Cody got leave to attack a herd by himself. Mounted on his famous pony Buckskin Joe he made a bag of thirty-six head on a half-mile run, and his name was Buffalo Bill from that time onward.