Billy tapped his Colt’s revolver.
“I may be little, but I can shoot as hard as if I were General
Jackson,” he warned.
“I expect you can, an’ I reckon you would,” chuckled the bandit,
tickled with Billy’s nerve; and he let him ride on.
So it was not long before “Pony Express Bill” was drawing $150 a month
pay, which was the top wages paid on the road.
Meanwhile Dave felt that his work at Fort Laramie was rather tame.
It was just the same thing day after day, with only ordinary pay,
and three meals a day, and a good bed at night, and a lot of
friends――and――and――that seemed about all, except that he was learning
all the time from books and from the people about him; and he knew
that he was growing inside as well as outside. To tell the truth, he
was doing first-rate and getting ahead, and was being given more and
more responsibility and showing that he could carry it; but of course
he wanted to prove his pluck by riding pony express. That _seemed_
bigger――whether it really was or not.
His chance came, as it generally does to everybody who waits for it
and holds himself ready. All the summer there had been talk among the
army officers at the post and between them and the stage passengers who
passed through of affairs in the East, where a presidential campaign
was being hotly carried on. It appeared, by the talk and by the papers,
that a man named Abraham Lincoln was a candidate of the North, and
that Stephen A. Douglas was a candidate of the South, and that if
Mr. Lincoln was elected South Carolina and other Southern States
threatened to withdraw from the Union. They claimed that each State had
the right of governing itself, and that States and Territories should
decide for themselves whether or not they would own slaves within their
borders.
The question as to whether Kansas should be “slave” or “free” had
caused fighting when that territory was being settled; and Billy
Cody’s father, who was a “Free State” man, had been so badly stabbed
that he never recovered. The settlement of Nebraska Territory also
had brought on much bitter feeling between North and South――for the
North was against the extension of slavery. So was Abraham Lincoln.
The army officers at Fort Laramie, some of whom were Northerners and
some Southerners, declared that the election of Lincoln would mean war;
according to the Northern officers, if the Southern States tried to
withdraw; according to the Southern officers, if the Southern States
were not permitted to withdraw.
The election was to be held on November 6, and it would be November 10
before the news of who won could reach Laramie by the Pony Express.
That was a long time at the best when such important events were
occurring; but even at that Davy (who was as impatient as anybody)
found that he might be disappointed, for he was ordered by Captain
Brown to take the stage west in the morning and go up the line to
Horseshoe Station on Government business.
When the stage left, early, Irish Tom was still standing ready beside
his horse to take the saddle bag from Charley Cliff. Charley had not
come――and it was learned afterward that the mail was late in starting
from St. Joseph because it had waited for the election news.
So Dave mounted the driver’s box on the C. O. C. & P. P. stage beside
Gentleman Bob, and they drove away and left the unknown news behind
them.
However, not for long. They had gone scarcely fifteen miles when
Gentleman Bob, who had been constantly glancing over his shoulder,
exclaimed: “There he comes! Look at him, will you!”
By “he” could be meant only one person――the Pony Express rider. Yes,
the Pony Express it was――a dark spot, rising, falling, rising, falling,
pelting up the dusty trail.
“He’s certainly going some,” commented the stage messenger, who this
time was not Captain Cricket, but was Jack Mayfield.
Bob flung his lash over the backs of his four mules and broke them into
a gallop. But although the stage was empty this trip and the mules
fresh, and the road smooth, the pony express closed in as fast as if
the coach were standing still.
“Going to pass us,” laughed Bob, and slowed his team.
And the pony express _did_ pass them. There was sudden staccato of
hoofs, like a long roll of a drum――a rush, a whoop――“Who’s elected?”
yelled Bob, turning in his seat to meet the onswoop.
“Lincoln. New York gives fifty thousand majority,” shouted back Irish
Tom; and in a cloud of dust he was away, leaving a flake of froth on
the coach box at Davy’s feet.
“Lincoln, huh?” remarked Gentleman Bob. “Well, I wonder what’ll happen
now. But that boy’s sure riding,” and he gazed reflectively after Irish
Tom.
XXII
CARRYING THE GREAT NEWS
“Lincoln’s elected!” The words continued to ring in Davy’s ears, and
the flying shape of the Pony Express, bearing the great news, was
constantly in his eyes as at trot and gallop the stage rolled along the
Salt Lake Overland trail from Fort Laramie on. Irish Tom and his hard
pushed pony were out of sight, but they were not forgotten.
The trail was almost deserted this morning; only one emigrant train was
passed, and, drawing aside to let the stage by, it cheered to the three
persons on the box: “Hooray for Lincoln!”
Davy cheered back; but Gentleman Bob and Messenger Mayfield looked
straight ahead and said nothing. That was the fashion. Emigrant trains
and bull trains were considered beneath the notice of the stage coach
box.
However, in another mile something did attract the notice of Gentleman
Bob, whose eyes were ever on the lookout, although he usually spoke
little.
“Looks like trouble, yonder,” he remarked, pointing with his whip.
“How’s your gun, Jack? O. K.?”
“Yes.”
“Better have it ready. Red, you get down in the boot under the seat and
stay there, when I say so. You’re liable to be shot full of holes.”
Bob gathered his lines tighter and peered keenly. His jaw set, as,
holding up his mules, prepared for sudden dash, he sent them forward at
brisk trot. Messenger Mayfield shifted his short double-barrelled gun
loaded with buckshot from between his knees to his lap and pulled down
his hat.
Half a mile before, in the hollow of the sweeping curve which the coach
was rounding, was a riderless horse moving restlessly hither-thither in
the brush beside the trail; he was equipped with saddle and bridle――at
least so Bob muttered, and so the messenger agreed, and so Davy
believed that he, also, could see――but of the rider there was no sign
_yet_.
Indians! Then why hadn’t they taken the horse? Or road agents, as the
bandits were called! The rider must have been shot from the saddle. And
would the coach, passing, find him? Or were the Indians, surprised in
the act, ambushed and waiting? Or what _had_ happened, anyway?
“That’s the Pony Express horse, gentleman,” said Bob, quietly. “I know
the animal. There’s been bad work.”
Mr. Mayfield, who was as nervy as Bob himself, nodded; Davy breathed
faster, his heart beating loudly; Bob flung his lash, straightened out
his team, and with brake slightly grinding descended the hill at a
gallop.
“I see him!” exclaimed Messenger Mayfield. “At the edge of the road.
He’s hurt, but he can move.”
Davy, too, could see a dismounted man――Irish Tom or somebody else――half
raising himself from the ground, and crawling into the trail, where he
sat waving his handkerchief.
With rattle and shuffle and grinding of brake the coach bore down,
prepared to stop――and prepared for anything else that might befall.
Yes, it was Irish Tom, the Pony Express rider, and that was his horse,
the saddle bags still on it, fidgeting in the brush. Tom was half
lying, half sitting, supporting himself with one arm and waving with
the other. His hat was gone, his uplifted hand bleeding, one leg seemed
useless, and altogether he appeared in a sad state.
In a cloud of dust from the braced hoofs and locked wheels Gentleman
Bob halted with the leaders’ fore hoofs almost touching Tom.
“What’s the matter here?”
Tom’s face, grimy and streaked and pinched with pain, gazed up
agonizedly, but he did not mince words. The Pony Express rider was
superior even to a stage driver.
“Catch that horse for me. I’ve broken my leg.”
Down from the box nimbly swung Mr. Mayfield; jamming his brakes
tighter and tying the lines short, down swung Gentleman Bob. Down
clambered Dave.
“How’d it happen?”
“Fell and threw me. Catch him and help me on; and hurry up.”
“Catch him, Jack; you and Dave,” bade Bob, crisply. “Where’s it broken,
Tom?”
“High up, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll ride if it kills me. I’m late
now.”
Luckily the horse was easily caught; his dragging lines, entangled in a
sage clump, held him until Mr. Mayfield laid hand upon them. When Dave,
with Mr. Mayfield leading the horse, returned into the road and hustled
back to Bob and Tom, Bob was arguing tensely.
“But you can’t, Tom! You can’t do it, man! You can’t fork a saddle with
your hip broken.”
Tom struggled to sit up――and the great beads of sweat stood out on his
red brow.
“You help me on, and tie me there; that’s all I ask. I’ll make it. I’ve
_got_ to.”
“We’ll take you on to the next station, and the saddle bags, too,”
retorted Bob. “That’s the quickest way. Strip that horse, Red. Give me
a lift with Tom, here, Jack. Open the coach door.”
“But there’s nobody except the agent at the next station, Bob!”
appealed Tom, wildly. “Who’ll take the express?”
“Then we’ll go through to the next station. They can send somebody from
there, I reckon.”
Suddenly a great thought struck Davy――and he wondered why the same
hadn’t occurred to the others.
“I’ll ride it, Tom! I’ll ride it, Bob! Let _me_.” And he sprang for the
express pony.
Bob slapped his dusty thigh: The idea struck him.
“Go it,” he exclaimed. “Take those lines. Unbuckle your guns, Tom, old
man, while I hold you.”
“Somebody put my spurs on him,” panted Tom, tugging at his belt buckle.
Words had been rapid, fingers worked fast; and almost in less time than
it takes to tell it, after the halting of the coach, Davy was in the
Pony Express saddle, with the final orders filling his ears.
“Now ride, boy; ride!”
Scarcely yet settled into the stirrups, he bounded forward (the jerk of
the mettlesome pony almost snapped his head loose), and was away.
“Ride, boy; ride!”
Davy jammed tighter his hat; his feet clinging to the stirrups, he half
turned in the saddle and waved his hand to the little group behind.
They would see that he was all right. They were grouped just as he had
left them: Mr. Mayfield standing, where he had strapped the spurs to
Davy’s heels after Dave had mounted; Gentleman Bob half erect, over
Tom, from whom he had passed the revolver belt.
But even as Davy looked, they all moved, preparing to lift Tom into
the coach. Davy faced ahead and settled to his work.
“Ride, boy; ride!”
Well, he _could_ ride! he knew how; and if he didn’t know how he was
bound to stick, anyway. There were the plump saddle bags under him,
crossed by his legs; he was carrying the fast mail――and Lincoln was
elected!
The pony ran without a break and needed no urging. He was trained to
his work――a stanch, swift, apparently tireless animal. The wind smote
Davy in the face, bringing water to his eyes; the sandy, beaten trail
flowed backward beneath them like a dun torrent, the sage and rocks
reeled dizzily past on either hand, and amidst the rhythmic beat of
hoofs the pony’s breaths rose to snorty grunts.
Now another emigrant train for Salt Lake City and the Mormon colony
dotted the trail before. Past them thudded Dave, and as he raced down
the line he yelled shrilly:
“Lincoln’s elected! Lincoln’s elected!”
“By how much?”
“New York gives him fifty thousand!”
Dave was not certain what this conveyed, exactly, but it had sounded
important from Irish Tom.
Some of the train cheered, some growled, but he speedily left both
cheers and growls behind him.
The first of the stations appeared ahead――a blot of darker drab beside
the trail. This was one of the way stations――the stations where horses
were changed in less than two minutes. Two minutes was the limit, but
frequently the change was made in fifteen seconds.
Dave’s pony seemed to know where he was and what was at hand. He
snorted, and at pick of spur let himself out a little longer in his
stride and doubled and stretched a little faster.
The station swiftly enlarged. A poor place it was, Dave remembered: a
low log cabin, sod roofed, with rude log stable close behind it, and
a pole corral. The station man would be about as rude in appearance:
unshaven, well weathered, dressed in slouch hat, rough flannel shirt,
red or blue, belted trousers and heavy boots. There he lived, by
the roadside, 700 miles into the Indian country, alone amidst the
unpeopled, rolling sagy hills through which flowed the North Platte
River and extended, unending, the ribbon-like road. Dave could see him
standing in front of the buildings, holding the relay horse and peering
down the trail for its rider. The stations were required by the company
to have the fresh horse saddled and bridled and ready half an hour
before the express was due.
Dave knew his duty, too. Not slackening pace, he loosened from the
fastenings the saddle bags under him. Up at full gallop he dashed, and
even before he had pulled his pony to its haunches, he tore the saddle
bags from beneath him and tossed them ahead. Then he was off in a
twinkling, staggering as he landed.
“Quick!” he gasped, out of parched throat.
The station man had stared, but he grabbed the saddle bags.
“Who are you? Where’s Tom?”
“Hurt. Coming on stage.”
The saddle bags were clapped on the other saddle. Dave grasped the
bridle lines.
“Bad?”
“Leg broken.” And Davy, thrusting foot into stirrup, vaulted aboard
almost over the station man’s head.
One last twitch to the saddle bags.
“What’s the news?”
“Lincoln’s elected. New York gives him fifty thousand majority.” And
away sprang Dave, headlong on the next leg of his route.
Thudding through the sand, clattering over the rocks, echoing through
short defiles, ever urging his pony, rode Davy. He was resolved to go
clear through, to the home station at Red Buttes, over sixty miles. The
stations ahead had no means of knowing that an accident had befallen
the regular rider; and to mount another substitute, at short notice,
would consume valuable time. At Red Buttes Billy Cody would take the
saddle bags――and to give them to Billy he must.
At the next station, fourteen miles, the station man had helpers in the
shape of two hostlers or stable hands. They also gazed, astonished at
sight of Dave instead of Irish Tom; but no one wasted precious moments
in explanations. The conversation was much the same as before――and on
his fresh horse Dave spurred again up the long, long trail. He passed a
toiling bull train. “Lincoln’s elected,” he shrieked as before; but he
was going so fast that he did not catch their response. He only noted
them wave their whips in salute.
Horseshoe Station hove into view. This was headquarter’s station for
the division. Here stayed, when not on the trail, Mr. Slade, the
division superintendent; and he was in front of the station cabin with
the other men, peering down the road.
Davy galloped in. He was assailed by a volley of queries――until Mr.
Slade cut them short.
“No matter,” he bade curtly. “Fasten that mochila. Now ride, my lad;
you’re half an hour late!”
“Lincoln’s elected,” gasped Davy, spurring away.
He was getting tired. His feet were growing numb, and his ankles were
being chafed raw. Before he arrived at the next station, the Platte
River had to be forded. As he passed through, a man sprang into sight,
in the trail at the farther bank. Dave’s heart leaped into his throat.
The man was partially screened by willows. He was armed. With ears
pricked, the horse forged ahead, and the man waited. To leave the
stream bed required a little climb up the rather steep bank, and as
Dave reached it out whipped the man’s revolver and the muzzle was
trained true at Dave. It seemed to him that the round hole covered
every inch of his body. His horse shied and balked.
“Throw off that mail bag.”
The man was “Yank,” assistant wagon boss under Charley Martin! Dave
recognized him at once, although the slouch hat was pulled low. But
beneath the brim the eyes were those of “Yank.”
“No,” panted Dave, trying to hold his voice steady and think of what
Billy Cody or Irish Tom would do. “It’s only election news.”
“Throw off that mail and be quick, too,” ordered “Yank,” with a string
of curses.
Hardly knowing what he did, but resolved to do something, Dave plunged
his spurs into his pony’s heaving flanks. With a great snort and a long
leap the pony lunged forward straight up the bank. “Yank” uttered a
sudden vicious exclamation and dived aside; but the horse’s shoulder
struck him, hurled him aside, and at the instant veering sharply into
the fringe of willows Dave sent his mount crashing through. The willows
slapped him in the face and on the body. He bent low――in a moment more
they were out of the willows, again into the trail, and tearing onward.
He heard a shot――just one; but the bullet went wide, and thudity,
thudity, he was galloping safe. A little shaky, Dave laughed; he felt
like giving a whoop――although he could not spare breath for even that.
He imagined, though, how mad “Yank” must be, and this was what had made
him laugh.
Even with the excitement of the hold-up that failed, the road began to
seem wearisome, the ride one monotonous pound. The chafing stirrups
tortured his ankles almost beyond endurance――but not quite; no, not
quite. The saddle chafed his thighs. His mouth was parched, he could
scarcely breathe; he could scarcely see, when, ever and anon, his head
swam giddily. He forded the river again. From throbbing pain, his
ankles changed to the relief of numbness, and his feet, blistered, and
his blistered thighs gradually ceased to be his; they felt as if they
belonged to somebody else.
He had vague recollection of arriving at the way stations, of
staggering from horse to horse, of being helped into the saddle, of
voices hailing him, and hands and voices forwarding him on again. Once
he passed the east-bound stage――and again he passed it, or another: and
he piped to the staring faces: “Lincoln’s elected. New York gives fifty
thousand majority.” The words issued mechanically, and he did not know
what effect they had.
He had vague recollection that a bevy of Indians yelled at him and
flourished their bows, and that he heard the hiss of arrows travelling
even faster than he; but he could not stop to argue. The one fact that
stuck in his mind was that he was nearly on time. “Three minutes late,”
he thought that somebody said at the last station where he changed
horses. And――“Go it, lad! You’re a plucky one.”
“Three minutes late” was all. The thought buoyed him up and glued him
to his saddle. Gallop, gallop, over rock and sand, through brush and
through the bare open and through occasional scrubby growth of trees;
through shaded canyons, and through the burning, windy sunshine.
Was that Red Buttes? Was that really Red Buttes at last――the end of his
trip, where waited Billy Cody? Supposing Billy wasn’t there; would they
want _him_ to continue riding, riding, forever? He uttered a little sob
of despair, but he set his teeth hard, and resolved that he’d do it;
he’d do it, if he _had_ to.
The road was hilly and his horse flagged. He spurred ruthlessly and
struck with his hat. If he did not arrive on time he would be ashamed,
for nobody could know how hard he had tried. Up the hill he forced
his pony and would not let him relax into a trot. Down the grade he
galloped――every forward jump a torment. Red Buttes――that _must_ be
Red Buttes――wavered strangely amidst the level expanse before. But he
reached it. At least he thought that he reached it, and he fumbled at
his saddle bags to loosen them.
Somebody rushed forward as if to meet him and help him; and he saw,
lined plainly amidst the confused other countenances and figures, the
astonished face of Billy.
“It’s Red! Look out! He’ll fall off!” Billy’s voice rang like a trumpet.
“Where’s the regular man?” they demanded.
“Tom’s hurt――away back. I took his place. Quick, Billy! Go on.
Election news. Lincoln’s elected.”
Billy vented an exclamation. He was into the saddle atop the saddle
bags; he sprang away.
“Take good care of that kid,” he called back. “He’s a good one.”
“You bet we will.”
“Am I on time?” wheezed Davy, vaguely, unable to see straight.
“Two minutes ahead of time, lad.”
Then they picked up Davy and carried him in, for he had fallen. He felt
that he was entitled to fall. Besides, he could not have walked to save
his life, now that he was done with the saddle bags.
XXIII
A BRUSH ON THE OVERLAND STAGE
Davy was so stiff and sore that for several days he moved around very
little; but he learned that the news which he had brought in was being
rushed westward at a tremendous rate. Billy Cody had ridden the last
ten miles of his own run in thirty minutes; and by special rider from
Julesburg the tidings “Lincoln’s elected!” had been taken into Denver
only two days and twenty-one hours out of St. Joseph――665 miles.
When Davy was on his way back to Laramie he heard, at Horseshoe
Station, that the news had been carried through to California in eight
days――two days less than schedule! That was riding! And although he
never again was on Pony Express, he felt that to the end of his life he
would be proud of having ridden it once and of having performed well.
The people at Fort Laramie appreciated what Davy had done, and if he
had not been a sensible boy the praise that he got would have turned
his head. Captain Brown it was who summoned him over to the Brown
quarters one evening and asked flatly:
“Dave, how would you like to go to West Point and be educated for a
soldier?”
Dave gulped, in surprise, and blushed red. Such an education had been
beyond his dreams.
“You have the right stuff in you, boy,” continued the captain, eyeing
him. “You’ve made a good start, but you can’t continue knocking around
this way. The frontier won’t last forever. When the telegraph comes
through, connecting the West with the East, the Pony Express will have
to quit; and there’ll soon be a railroad, and then the stage coach
business will have to quit. If we have war (and things look like it),
I’ll be ordered out; so will the other officers and men here, and what
will happen to you is a problem. See? If you want to go to West Point
you ought to begin preparing, so as to be ready when you’re old enough
to enter. It’s no easy matter to take the course at the Academy; but
it’s the finest education in the world, even if you don’t stay in the
army. I don’t want you to go there with the idea of being a fighting
man. Army officers are the last persons of all to wish for fighting.
The army has a great work to do outside of war. We’re supposed to
civilize the country and keep it peaceful. At West Point your body is
built up, and what you learn, you learn thoroughly. You come out fit to
meet every kind of emergency. What do you say? If you say ‘yes,’ then
I’ll make application for you to the President direct and ask him to
appoint you ‘at large,’ as he has a right to do, just as if you were my
own son.”
“Yes, sir,” stammered Davy, red. “I’d like to go.”
“Good!” exclaimed the captain, shaking with him. “I’ll make arrangements
so that if I’m ordered out you’ll be in the right hands.”
Events seemed to occur fast. By Pony Express dispatches and the tissue
newspapers it was learned that South Carolina had withdrawn from the
Union and that the other Southern States were following suit. Abraham
Lincoln in his inauguration address besought peace but stood firmly
for a United States. His address was carried from Saint Joseph to
Sacramento, 1966 miles, in seven days and seventeen hours――a new
record. But when arrived the word that on April 12 the South Carolina
troops had bombarded Fort Sumter, then everybody knew that the war had
begun.