Byers said nothing.
The habit of the hard-riding pony express messengers of Russell, Majors, and Waddell was to be ahead of schedule. Each man prided himself on covering his relay under the assigned number of hours. The mounts supplied were chosen for speed, stamina, and heart; the men for gameness, resource, and knowledge of the country. To be late was contrary to the tradition of the service.
The pony express was a triumph of American pluck and energy. It stretched from St. Joseph to San Francisco, two thousand miles through the heart of the Indian country. The enterprise included five hundred superb horses, nearly two hundred stations, a hundred riders. The men in the little racing saddles were stripped to the last ounce. For protection they carried only a knife and a revolver. The mail bags never weighed more than twenty pounds. Each letter was written on thin tissue paper. The postage on the smallest was five dollars. Between the Missouri and Sacramento the time-table called for ten days, but often the pouches moved two hundred miles toward their destination in twenty-four hours.
Those in the saddle had to be man size in soul. No weaklings ever applied for this job. Some of those in the service were outlaws, for court warrants did not reach into the sage. Many were desperadoes.[[1]] But few of them were quitters. They played out the hand that had been dealt them.
[1] This was more true of the station keepers and the attendants than of the stage drivers and pony express messengers. Slade, the notorious man killer, was superintendent of a division at Julesburg, Colorado. He succeeded Jules, whom he murdered in cold blood. Slade ruled his crew of wild assistants with an iron fist. He was an able and efficient servant of the company. Later he was hanged by the vigilantes in Montana. Legends of the country, probably much exaggerated, credit him with having killed thirty men.—W. M. R.
“Tim’s sure late,” the wrangler said hurriedly, for he saw signs of a return to music which did not soothe his savage breast.
“Kid McClintock’s early. Hour ahead of his schedule,” the station keeper replied.
Far away to the east a small cloud of dust rose from the sage and greasewood. Almost at the same time a second billow of yellow alkali appeared in the sunset glow of the opposite horizon.