Anecdotes of the Trail and Honor Roll
No detailed account of the Pony Express would be complete without
mentioning the adventures of Robert Haslam, in those days called "Pony
Bob," and William F. Cody, who is known to fame and posterity as
"Buffalo Bill."
Haslam's banner performance came about in a matter-of-fact way, as is
generally the case with deeds of heroism. On a certain trip during the
Ute raids mentioned in the last chapter, he stopped at Reed's Station on
the Carson River in Nevada, and found no change of horses, since all the
animals had been appropriated by the white men of the vicinity for a
campaign against the Indians. Haslam therefore fed the horse he was
riding, and after a short rest started for Bucklands[29], the next
station which was fifteen miles down the river. He had already ridden
seventy-five miles and was due to lay off at the latter place. But on
arriving, his successor, a man named Johnson Richardson, was unable or
indisposed to go on with the mail[30]. It happened that Division
Superintendent W. C. Marley was at Bucklands when Haslam arrived, and,
since Richardson would not go on duty, Marley offered "Pony Bob" fifty
dollars bonus if he would take up the route. Haslam promptly accepted
the proposal, and within ten minutes was off, armed with a revolver and
carbine, on his new journey. He at first had a lonesome ride of
thirty-five miles to the Sink of the Carson. Reaching the place without
mishap, he changed mounts and hurried on for thirty-seven miles over the
alkali wastes and through the sand until he came to Cold Springs. Here
he again changed horses and once more dashed on, this time for thirty
miles without stopping, till Smith's Creek was reached where he was
relieved by J. G. Kelley. "Bob" had thus ridden one hundred and
eighty-five miles without stopping except to change mounts. At Smith's
Creek he slept nine hours and then started back with the return mail. On
reaching Cold Springs once more, he found himself in the midst of
tragedy. The Indians had been there. The horses had been stolen. All was
in ruins. Nearby lay the corpse of the faithful station-keeper. Small
cheer for a tired horse and rider! Haslam watered his steed and pounded
ahead without rest or refreshment. Before he had covered half the
distance to the next station, darkness was falling. The journey was
enshrouded with danger. On every side were huge clumps of sage-bush
which would offer excellent chances for savages to lie in ambush. The
howling of wolves added to the dolefulness of the trip. And haunting him
continuously was the thought of the ruined little station and the
stiffened corpse behind him. But pony riders were men of courage and
nerve, and Bob was no exception. He arrived at Sand Springs safely; but
here there was to be no rest nor delay. After reporting the outrage he
had just seen, he advised the station man of his danger, and, after
changing horses, induced the latter to accompany him on to the Sink of
the Carson, which move doubtless saved the latter's life. Reaching the
Carson, they found a badly frightened lot of men who had been attacked
by the Indians only a few hours previously. A party of fifteen with
plenty of arms and ammunition had gathered in the adobe station, which
was large enough also to accommodate as, many horses. Nearby was a cool
spring of water, and, thus fortified, they were to remain, in a state of
siege, if necessary, until the marauders withdrew from that vicinity. Of
course they implored Haslam to remain with them and not risk his life
venturing away with the mail. But the mail must go; and the schedule,
hard as it was, must be maintained. "Bob" had no conception of fear, and
so he galloped away, after an hour's rest. And back into Bucklands he
came unharmed, after having suffered only three and a half hours of
delay. Superintendent Marley, who was still present when the daring
rider returned, at once raised his bonus from fifty to one hundred
dollars.
Nor was this all of Haslam's great achievement. The west-bound mail
would soon arrive, and there was nobody to take his regular run. So
after resting an hour and a half, he resumed the saddle and hurried back
along his old trail, over the Sierras to Friday's Station. Then "Bob"
rested after having ridden three hundred and eighty miles with scarcely
eleven hours of lay-off, and within a very few hours of regular schedule
time all the way. In speaking of this performance afterwards, Haslam[31]
modestly admitted that he was "rather tired," but that "the excitement
of the trip had braced him up to stand the journey."
The most widely known of all the pony riders is William F. Cody--usually
called "Bill," who in early life resided in Kansas and was
raised amid the exciting scenes of frontier life. Cody had an unusually
dangerous route between Red Buttes and Three Crossings. The latter place
was on the Sweetwater River, and derived its name from the fact that the
stream which followed the bed of a rocky cañon, had to be crossed three
times within a space of sixty yards. The water coming down from the
mountains, was always icy cold and the current swift, deep, and
treacherous. The whole bottom of the cañon was often submerged, and in
attempting to follow its course along the channel of the stream, both
horse and rider were liable to plunge at any time into some abysmal
whirlpool. Besides the excitement which the Three Crossings and an
Indian country furnished, Cody's trail ran through a region that was
often frequented by desperadoes. Furthermore, he had to ford the North
Platte at a point where the stream was half a mile in width and in
places twelve feet deep. Though the current was at times slow, dangers
from quicksand were always to be feared on these prairie rivers. Cody,
then but a youth, had to surmount these obstacles and cover his trip at
an average of fifteen miles an hour.
Cody entered the Pony Express service just after the line had been
organized. At Julesburg he met George Chrisman, an old friend who was
head wagon-master for Russell, Majors, and Waddell's freighting
department. Chrisman was at the time acting as an agent for the express
line, and, out of deference to the youth, he hired him temporarily to
ride the division then held by a pony man named Trotter. It was a short
route, one of the shortest on the system, aggregating only forty-five
miles, and with three relays of horses each way. Cody, who had been
accustomed to the saddle all his young life, had no trouble in following
the schedule, but after keeping the run several weeks, the lad was
relieved by the regular incumbent, and then went east, to Leavenworth,
where he fell in with another old friend, Lewis Simpson, then acting as
wagon boss and fitting up at Atchison a wagon train of supplies for the
old stage line at Fort Laramie and points beyond. Acting through
Simpson, Cody obtained a letter of recommendation from Mr. Russell, the
head of the firm, addressed to Jack Slade, Superintendent of the
division between Julesburg and Rocky Ridge, with headquarters at
Horseshoe Station, thirty-six miles west of Fort Laramie, in what is now
Wyoming. Armed with this letter, young Cody accompanied Simpson's
wagon-train to Laramie, and soon found Superintendent Slade. The
superintendent, observing the lad's tender years and frail stature, was
skeptical of his ability to serve as a pony rider; but on learning that
Cody was the boy who had already given satisfactory service as a
substitute some months before, at once engaged him and assigned him to
the perilous run of seventy-six miles between Red Buttes and Three
Crossings. For some weeks all went well. Then, one day when he reached
his terminal at Three Crossings, Cody found that his successor who was
to have taken the mail out, had been killed the night before. As there
was no extra rider available, it fell to young Cody to fill the dead
courier's place until a successor could be procured. The lad was
undaunted and anxious for the added responsibility. Within a moment he
was off on a fresh horse for Rocky Ridge, eighty-five miles away.
Notwithstanding the dangers and great fatigue of the trip, Cody rode
safely from Three Crossings to his terminal and returned with the
eastbound mail, going back over his own division and into Red Buttes
without delay or mishap--an aggregate run of three hundred and
twenty-two miles. This was probably the longest continuous performance
without formal rest period in the history of this or any other courier
service.
Not long afterward, Cody was chased by a band of Sioux Indians while
making one of his regular trips. The savages were armed with revolvers,
and for a few minutes made it lively for the young messenger. But the
superior speed and endurance of his steed soon told; lying flat on the
animal's neck, he quickly distanced his assailants and thundered into
Sweetwater, the next station, ahead of schedule. Here he found--as so
often happened in the history of the express service--that the place
had been raided, the keeper slain, and the horses driven off. There was
nothing to do but drive his tired pony twelve miles further to Ploutz
Station, where he got a fresh horse, briefly reported what he had
observed, and completed his run without mishap.
On another occasion[32] it became mysteriously rumored that a certain
Pony Express pouch would carry a large sum of currency. Knowing that
there was great likelihood of some bandits or "road agents" as they were
commonly called getting wind of the consignment and attempting a holdup,
Cody hit upon a little emergency ruse. He provided himself with an extra
mochila which he stuffed with waste papers and placed over the saddle in
the regular position. The pouch containing the currency was hidden
under a special saddle blanket. With his customary revolver loaded and
ready, Cody then started. His suspicions were soon confirmed, for on
reaching a particularly secluded spot, two highwaymen stepped from
concealment, and with leveled rifles compelled the boy to stop, at the
same time demanding the letter pouch. Holding up his hands as ordered,
Cody began to remonstrate with the thugs for robbing the express, at the
same time declaring to them that they would hang for their meanness if
they carried out their plans. In reply to this they told Cody that they
would take their own chances. They knew what he carried and they wanted
it. They had no particular desire to harm him, but unless he handed over
the pouch without delay they would shoot him full of holes, and take it
anyhow. Knowing that to resist meant certain death Cody began slowly to
unfasten the dummy pouch, still protesting with much indignation.
Finally, after having loosed it, he raised the pouch and hurled it at
the head off the nearest outlaw, who dodged, half amused at the young
fellow's spirit. Both men were thus taken slightly off their guard, and
that instant the rider acted like a flash. Whipping out his revolver, he
disabled the farther villain; and before the other, who had stooped to
recover the supposed mail sack, could straighten up or use a weapon,
Cody dug the spurs into his horse, knocked him down, rode over him and
was gone. Before the half-stunned robber could recover himself to shoot,
horse and rider were out of range and running like mad for the next
station, where they arrived ahead of schedule.
The following is a partial list, so far as is known[33], of the men who
rode the Pony Express and contributed to the lasting fame of the
enterprise:
Baughn, Melville
Beatley, Jim
"Boston"
Boulton, William
Brink, James W.
Burnett, John
Bucklin, Jimmy
Carr, William
Carrigan, William
Cates, Bill
Clark, Jimmy
Cliff, Charles
Cody, William F.
Egan, Major
Ellis, J. K.
Faust, H. J.
Fisher, John
Frey, Johnnie
Gentry, Jim
Gilson, Jim
Hamilton, Sam
Haslam, Robert
Hogan (first name missing)
Huntington, Let
"Irish Tom"
James, William
Jenkins, Will D.
Kelley, Jay G.
Keetley, Jack
"Little Yank"
Martin, Bob
McCall, J. G.
McDonald, James
McNaughton, Jim
Moore, Jim
Perkins, Josh
Rand, Theodore
Richardson, Johnson
Riles, Bart
Rising, Don C.
Roff, Harry
Spurr, George
Thacher, George
Towne, George
Wallace, Henry
Westcott, Dan
Zowgaltz, Jose.
Many of these men were rough and unlettered. Many died deaths of
violence. The bones of many lie in unknown graves. Some doubtless lie
unburied somewhere in the great West, in the winning of which their
lives were lost. Yet be it always remembered, that in the history of the
American nation they played an important part. They were bold-hearted
citizen knights to whom is due the honors of uncrowned kings.
[29] Afterwards named Fort Churchill. This ride took place in the summer
of 1860.
[30] Some reports say that Richardson was stricken with fear. That he
was probably suffering from overwrought nerves, resulting from excessive
risks which his run had involved, is a more correct inference. This is
the only case on record of a pony messenger failing to respond to duty,
unless killed or disabled.
[31] After the California Pony Express was abandoned, Bob rode for Wells
Fargo & Co., between Friday's Station and Virginia City, Nevada, a
distance of one hundred miles. He seems to have enjoyed horseback
riding, for he made this roundtrip journey in twenty-four hours. When
the Central Pacific R. R. was built, and this pony line abandoned,
Haslam rode for six months a twenty-three mile division between Virginia
City and Reno, traveling the distance in less than one hour. To
accomplish this feat, he used a relay of fifteen horses. He was
afterwards transfered to Idaho where he continued in a similar capacity
on a one hundred mile run before quitting the service for a less
exciting vocation.
[32] Inman & Cody, Salt Lake Trail.
[33] Root and Connelley's Overland Stage to California.