AN ALARMING SITUATION
Meanwhile Alden Payne had entered upon the most stirring experience of
his life.
In a twinkling, as may be said, he was transformed from an emigrant
plodding his way across the continent to a Pony Express Rider, whose
sole effort was to skim over the dangerous ground at the topmost
speed to which his swift pony could be forced. “Get ahead in spite of
everything,” was the motto of those daring fellows.
It was a sudden impulse that led the youth to make this perilous
venture, but it is almost certain that, had he been given hours in
which to consider the plan, he would have done precisely what he did do.
It is in the momentous crises of a person’s career that he often
becomes sensible to trifles which would pass unnoticed at other times.
The moment Alden set off with the small rifle of the stricken rider
grasped in his left hand and the reins held loosely in his right, he
noticed several things. He knew he was twenty or thirty pounds heavier
than Dick Lightfoot. The saddle, although of the same kind as his own,
still felt a little different. The stirrup straps were an inch or two
shorter than those to which he was accustomed, but he decided to waste
no time in shifting the buckles. The rifle was lighter than his weapon,
for we know those men sacrificed everything possible to gain lightness.
If an anxious correspondent offered a big price to the carrier to
accept a thin missive after the pouch had been made up, he was refused
and obliged to wait for the next messenger.
The riders of course used spurs though they were not often necessary.
The animal knew what was expected of him and gave it willingly. Covered
with foam and dust, with his sides heaving, he thundered up to the
station where rest was awaiting him, after which he was ready to bound
away on the wings of the wind again. Often his master passed through
the most frightful perils without shouting a command to his pony. A
pressure of the knee, the gentlest pull on the rein, or perhaps a
soft exclamation was enough: he obeyed with unerring instinct. As Dick
Lightfoot declared, the animals came to know the routes better than
their riders. When Theodore Rand covered the 110 miles between Box
Elder and Julesburg, he always did it by night.
It made no difference whether the sun was shining overhead or the stars
twinkled faintly or not at all. The rain might descend in torrents,
hail, snow and sleet might batter horse and rider like fine birdshot,
and the temperature might drop below zero, or throb with heat, still
rider and horse who were like one creature must plunge on and ever on,
so long as muscle and nerve could stand the terrific strain.[B]
[B] One of the Express Riders made the run from St. Joe to Denver,
625 miles, in two days and twenty-one hours. Within five miles of
Guittard’s Station, Will Bolton’s horse was disabled. He abandoned
the animal and with the mail pouches slung over his shoulder, trotted
to the next station, remounted and completed his run with only a
small loss of time. J. H. Keetley, now a prosperous merchant of Salt
Lake City, was an Express Rider from the opening to the close of the
service. He once rode 300 miles in twenty-four hours, stopping only
to change horses. Robert Haslam, remembered through the West as “Pony
Bob,” is a genial, prosperous citizen of Chicago, associated in the
management of the Congress Hall organization. In his younger days he
performed many astonishing feats as an Express Rider. He was twice
wounded by Indians, made the speediest 190 miles on record, and for
six months covered daily the run between Reno, Nevada, and Virginia
City, a distance of twenty-three miles, well within an hour. He used
fifteen horses on each run. How those old timers could ride and if
necessary fight! I add the following extract from an interesting letter
received by me from Mr. Haslam:
“CHICAGO, Dec. 28, 1908.
“Very few of the old Pony Express Riders ever carried a rifle
of any description from start to finish. I once purchased a
Spencer from a deserter from Fort Bridger, paying him $20. This
was in 1861. The weapon was a breech-loader with seven shots. I
always carried a Colt’s revolver with two cylinders, and often
had to use both of them. I made sure that the pistol was fully
loaded when I started. Caps were employed, and the revolver was
loaded by means of a ramrod attached to it. After the Spencer
came the Sharp, seven-shooter, repeating breech-loader with
cartridges. My Spencer weighed about seven and a half pounds,
but I never used it on the Express. When I was messenger from
Salt Lake to Denver in the service of Wells Fargo & Co. I
carried a short double-barreled shotgun with buckshot and later
a Winchester 16-shooter. When in the government service in
Porto Rico and the Philippines, all the weapon I carried was a
Colt’s improved double action revolver.”
Now Alden Payne would not have had a tithe of the sense with which we
have credited him all along, if he had forgotten for one moment the
peril which he faced from the moment he came up with the inanimate form
of Dick Lightfoot. The turning back of Jethro Mix, and the shift from
one saddle to the other had taken only two or three minutes. In the
mean time, if there was any danger of thoughtlessness, it was removed
by the sight of that feathered shaft protruding from the back of the
poor fellow who lay on the flinty earth.
The reasonable supposition was that the redskin who had discharged
the missile was in a position to drive others with equal deadliness
and that he would do so. In all probability there were more than one
of them. Why the African youth was permitted to ride away unmolested,
and Alden Payne to climb into the saddle without harm would be hard to
explain, but such was the fact.
Alden kept looking across the gorge and at all the points from which a
missile might come. He saw nothing which was not strange, but before
he could give the word to Dick an arrow whizzed in front of his face
so close that he blinked. Rather curiously the emotion roused by this
occurrence was that of flaming rage. We know Alden had a quick temper.
Had it been otherwise, he would not have dared to do what he did the
next minute.
When he glanced across the ravine, he saw his man, or rather two men.
The warriors had risen from behind an immense rock, the head and
shoulders of one showing while the other stood fully revealed in the
open. It looked as if he despised the youth and was challenging him to
do his worst.
That one quick glance showed Alden that the redskin thus exposed was
fitting another arrow to the string of his bow. His companion seemed to
be acting the part of spectator.
“Two can play at that game!” muttered Alden, bringing the rifle of
Dick Lightfoot to his shoulder and sighting at the miscreant. He had
noticed the straggling black hair of his foe, which dangled about his
shoulders, his naked chest and deerskin shirt. He was of squat form,
sturdy and enduring of frame, and a foe not to be despised by anyone.
Thus it came about that he and Alden Payne were aiming at each other
at the same moment. That which followed was unprecedented in its way.
The youth pulled trigger an instant before the other let fly. Had Alden
possessed his own gun, he would have brought down the redskin, for the
distance was not great, and we remember he was a fine marksman, but
the new weapon did not feel precisely like the one to which he was
accustomed. The two had not become fitted to each other.
As it was, the bullet struck the forearm of the Indian and inflicted a
sharp wound. It was the arm which was grasping the middle of the bow,
and the hurt caused an involuntary twitch that spoiled the aim of the
archer. The arrow, instead of speeding straight for the heart of the
youth, whizzed high in air, circled grotesquely over and struck a rock
fifty feet away from him. It was a lucky escape, and Alden lost not a
second in taking advantage of it.
Throwing his head forward on the neck of his pony, he yanked the reins
and called:
“Go it, old fellow!”
The creature understood. He leaped twenty feet, as if he had been
hurled from a springboard and away he sped.
It is more than probable that the second Indian launched an arrow after
the skurrying horseman, though Alden Payne had no means of knowing. A
grim fancy came to the youth that if his enemy had done so, the pony
outran the missile.
A brief dash carried Alden beyond sight of his enemies, though he was
likely to encounter others. He partly straightened up in his saddle
and looked to the right and left. With relief unspeakable, he suddenly
debouched from the broad gorge he had been following, into a wide
plateau. On the right, it wound to the foothills a long distance away
and stretched as far as the vision could reach to the left. Some three
or four miles straight ahead, the comparatively level plain swept until
it entered the hills again, beyond which could be seen the snowy peaks
of a lofty mountain range.
The plateau must not be looked upon as a smooth plain, for here and
there it took a rolling form with arroyos and occasionally boulders
that had to be skirted, but, compared with most of the country to the
rear, it was an ideal course for a horse and his rider.
And how the pony did go! With a snort he flirted his head, as if he
would shake off everything that held him back as easily as he blew
aside the fleck of foam that alighted like a snowflake on the knee of
his rider. With nose outstretched, mane and tail flying, and the play
of each muscle like the working of a splendid machine, he flung the
miles to the rear with a rapidity that was almost incredible.
Almost in the same instant that the pony’s hoofs hit the plateau,
the graceful limbs struck an astounding speed. Alden had no means of
knowing the rate attained, but it must have been twenty-five miles an
hour. It seemed more than bone and muscle could hold, and yet such was
the animal’s perfection of form that he showed no apparent increase of
effort. The still air was fanned into a gale which cut the face of the
rider and made him contract his eyelashes and catch his breath. He did
not try to restrain the peerless steed, for the animal, not Alden, was
now the master.
“I can understand what poor Dick Lightfoot meant when he said he
enjoyed this life more than anything else in the world,” thought Alden
as his blood danced. “What delight this would be if the pony could keep
it up for hours.”
And he would have done it had the ground continued favorable. It was
through such seizure of chances that the wonderful system of the Pony
Express Riders amazed the country throughout the months the service
lasted, until the telegraph and afterward the railway put it out of
business.
Alden kept up the policy of leaving everything to the pony. The reins
dangled loose upon the moist satin neck, and the rider did not speak.
Looking down at the stony ground he now and then caught glimpses of
hoof prints, showing that others had traveled the way before him.
Generally the path as it might be called was so wide that only now and
then did the ponies travel in one another’s footsteps.
Alden reflected that the distance from his starting point to the next
station westward was eight miles or so. He calculated that it would
be covered in the course of the next half hour, always provided no
“obstacle” was encountered.
“No matter how fast we go, this mail must be late; there is no making
up the time already lost.”
Obeying that instinct which often touches reason in the horse, Dick
slackened his speed of his own accord, as he approached the boundary
of the plateau where the ground not only became rougher but inclined
upward at a rather stiff grade. Still his gait was a run, and swifter
than is often seen. So long as he could maintain it he would do so.
The long summer afternoon was drawing to a close, but Alden ought to
reach the station well before sunset. As he figured it he would change
horses there, cover another run of about a dozen miles, change again
and complete his task at a point something over thirty miles from where
Dick Lightfoot had begun it.
This was on the supposition that the men connected with the service
would permit the youth to finish the task he had voluntarily taken upon
himself. It would seem that they would forbid the innovation, when
all the circumstances are remembered, but that remained to be seen.
Sufficient unto the hour was the work before him.
With the slackening of pace, Alden scanned the ground in front. The
course did not lead between cliffs and high precipices, as was the
case where he began his journey, but it was as if the same plateau had
taken an upward slope and gained many more boulders and masses of rock
in doing so. A horse might keep straight on or swerve to the right or
left. There seemed to be any number of routes.
For the first time the youth interfered with the pace of his animal.
Certain that he would exhaust himself by running up the slope, Alden
pulled gently on the rein. The pony flirted his head impatiently and
refused to put on the brakes.
“Your nerve will kill you,” said the rider, resigning the attempt for
the moment.
The incline grew steeper. Alden pulled harder and the pony dropped to a
walk, but plainly he did not like it.
“No use, Dick; I shan’t let you kill yourself; you forget that I’m
heavier than your late master and it is cruelty to allow you to gallop
up hill.”
The rocks became so plentiful that the rider could not see far ahead or
on either hand. He reflected that the neighborhood must be a tempting
one to redskins or road agents, for the latter class of criminals was
one of the pests of overland travel in the early days.
Less than half a mile to the left and in advance, rose a range or spur
to the height of several hundred feet. It swept round to the northward,
so that if the rider kept straight on, he must cross it, or make a long
detour to the northeast.
With Dick on a walk, Alden scanned each point of the compass, not
forgetting the instruction of Shagbark always to look to the rear, for
in that part of the world, danger comes from one direction as often as
from the other.
While scrutinizing the ridge which showed a considerable growth of
dwarfed pine, Alden was startled to observe a thin column of smoke
issuing from a point on the crest. The bluish vapor climbed straight up
into the clear sky, where it slowly dissolved. Its course showed that
not the slightest breeze was blowing.
“It looks like an Indian signal,” he thought; “I wonder if it has
anything to do with _me_.”
He brought his binocular to the front and raised it to his eyes. Little
resulted from the action. The fire which caused the vapor was burning
behind a rock, beyond reach of the glass. He could not catch the
faintest sight of it.
The natural supposition was that if this finger of smoke was a signal
from one party of red men to another, something would show in the
nature of a reply. He swept every point of the horizon with the
instrument, but that which he dreaded to see he did not discover. Still
this fact might signify nothing.
Alden could not rid himself of the fear that the signal referred to
him. Its precise meaning was beyond guessing. Shagbark might have
solved the puzzle, but his young friend could not.
“There may be a party of Indians camping on my trail and this is to let
them know where they will find me. Perhaps it tells them they needn’t
bother, for those in front have fixed things so as to gather me in; or
possibly――but what’s the use?” he demanded impatiently, realizing that
it was worse than useless to launch out upon such a sea of speculation.
The pony showed a wish to resume his gallop, even though the incline
continued, but his rider would not permit.
“I may be wrong,” he reflected, “but I’m too merciful――”
To his amazement, Dick at that moment suddenly came to a full stop.
Not only that, but he threw up his head, thrust his ears forward and
snorted. He had made some alarming discovery. What could it be?
The startled Alden glanced ahead. The rocks and boulders still cut
off his view, and he could not see clearly for a hundred yards in any
direction.
The signs of alarm on the part of the pony increased. He snorted louder
and began backing, showing an inclination to whirl about and dash off.
Alden patted his neck and spoke soothingly, but could not quiet him.
“He knows a good deal more than I do,” said the youth to himself.
Then, yielding to an impulse natural in the circumstances, Alden deftly
slipped from the saddle and ran a few paces to the nearest rock behind
which he crouched. The pony thus relieved of his burden, swung around
as if on a pivot and dashed toward the plateau.
“He scented a party of Indians; they will be here in a minute or two.
Heavens! how came I to overlook it?”
The exclamation was caused by the discovery that after firing at the
dusky archer in the ravine, he had neglected to reload his rifle, a
piece of forgetfulness for which Shagbark never would have forgiven him.
Alden drew a bullet from his pouch with which to repair the blunder,
and then when he tried to force it down the muzzle, he made a
terrifying discovery. He had failed to take the pouch from the body
of Dick Lightfoot. His own bullets were too large for the bore of the
smaller weapon, which was of no more use to him than a stick of wood!