Frederick R. Bechdolt

“ Johns staunched the blood from his wounds and crawled to the top of a pile of grain-sacks whence he could see over the unroofed wall. Here he stayed for three days and three nights. With every sunrise the magpies and buzzards came in great flocks, to sit upon the wall after they had sated themselves in the corral, and watch him. With every nightfall the wolves slunk down from the mountains and fought over the body outside the gate. Night and day the thirst-tortured mules kept up a pandemonium. ”

“ Apaches crept upon them in the mountains of southwestern New Mexico. Of the battles which they fought history contains no record; but they went on driving the Mexican laborers to their toil under the hot sun, and the chain of low adobe buildings crept slowly westward.
In those days Mexican outlaws were drifting into Arizona and New Mexico from Chihuahua and Sonora; and these cutthroats, to whom murder was a means of livelihood, were almost as great a menace as the Indians. Three of them got jobs on the station building gang and awaited an opportunity to make money after their bloody fashion. ”

“ And in the tale of this great struggle there is another motive in addition to the love of adventure—and like that love, unacknowledged by those whom it stirred,—the strong instinctive desire for a closer union which exists among all Americans.
In the beginning there was a frontier two hundred miles or so west of the Mississippi River. Behind that frontier wide-stacked wood-burning locomotives were drawing long trains on tracks of steel; steamers came sighing up and down the muddy rivers; cities smeared the sky with clouds of coal smoke ”

“ But every man of them had the time of his life and lived out his days with a wealth of memories more precious than gold; memories of a man's part in a great rough drama.
The Winning of the West, that drama has been called. Perhaps no act in the play attained the heights which were reached by the last one before the coming of the railroad, the one with which this story has to deal, wherein bold men allied themselves on different sides to get the contract of carrying the mails by stage-coaches on schedule time across the wilderness. ”

“ Often he had to whip them into a dead run for miles where most men would hesitate to drive a buckboard at a walk.
During the rainy seasons the rivers of that Southwestern land proceeded to demonstrate that they had a right to the name—to which they never pretended to live up at other times—by running bank full. These coffee-colored floods were underlaid by thick strata of quicksands. Occasionally one of them simply absorbed a coach; and, unless the driver was very swift in cutting the traces, it took unto itself two or three mules for good measure. ”

“ Resisting the temptation to indulge in dissertation concerning the beneficial effects of the dime-novel on the morale of successive younger generations, we return to the men who said that they went beyond the Mississippi to gain money. Like the schoolboy they were hot with the lust for adventure. The men of action wanted to risk their lives, and the men of wealth wanted to risk their dollars. ”

“ Joseph-San Francisco route was practical throughout the year.
That scheme was the pony express; men on horseback with fresh relays every ten or twelve miles, to carry letters at top speed across the wilderness. ”

“ But bad horses were a part of the game; like bad men every one in the business expected them and took them as a matter of course. The riders of the pony express hardly recall such incidents because of the larger adventures with which their lives were filled.
There was the ride of Jim Moore, for a long time famous among the exploits on the frontier. His route went from Midway station to old Julesburg, one hundred and forty miles across the great plains of western Nebraska. The stations were from ten to fourteen miles apart. ”

“ There were six passengers in the coach, all of them old-timers in the West. And they were known as the Free Thompson party, from the name of the leader. Every one of these men was armed with a late model rifle and was taking full advantage of the company's rule which allowed the carrying of as much ammunition as one pleased. They had several thousand rounds of cartridges.
Such a seasoned company as this was not likely to go into a place like Stein's Pass without taking a look or two ahead; and six hundred Apaches were certain to offer some evidence of their presence to keen eyes. ”

“ The quality of the men themselves explains that. One can judge that quality by an affair which took place at Stein's Pass.
“Steen's Pass,” as the old-timers spelled it—and as the name is still pronounced—is a gap in the mountains just west of Lordsburg, New Mexico. The Southern Pacific comes through it to-day. One afternoon Mangus Colorado and Cochise were in the neighborhood with six hundred Apache warriors, when a smoke signal from distant scouts told them that the overland stage was approaching without an armed escort. ”

“ But the people east of the Mississippi and the people west of the Sierras were Americans, and the desire for a close union was strong within them. Their business habits were such that they could not carry on commercial affairs without it. ”

“ They bought about fifteen hundred mules and horses, which were sent out along the route. To feed these animals, hay and grain were freighted, in some cases for two hundred miles, and the loads arrived at the corrals worth a goodly fraction of their weight in silver. There was a station in western Texas to which teamsters had to haul water for nine months of the year from twenty-two miles away. At every one of these lonely outposts there were an agent and a stock-tender, and at some it was necessary to maintain what amounted to a little garrison. ”

“ But that time was beaten by two hours in the carrying of Lincoln's inaugural address. Seven days and seventeen hours—the world's record for transmitting messages by men and horses!
The firm of Russel, Majors & Waddel spent $700,000 on the pony express during the eighteen months of its life; they took in something less than $500,000. But they accomplished what they had set out to do. In 1860 the Butterfield line was notified to transfer its rolling-stock to the west end of the northern route; their rivals got the mail contract for the eastern portion. ”

“ In San Francisco hotel lobbies men and women passed and repassed one another dressed in Eastern fashions—some months late, but Eastern fashions none the less. Newspapers proclaimed the latest tidings from the East in large type. Men were falling out over the same political issues which embroiled men by the Atlantic seaboard ”

“ He rode thirty-five miles to the Carson sink; got a fresh horse and made the next thirty miles, without a drop of water; changed at Sand Springs and again at Cold Springs; and after one hundred and ninety miles in the saddle turned the pouches over to J. G. Kelley.
Here, at Smith's Creek, Pony Bob got nine hours' rest. Then he began the return trip. At Cold Springs he found the station a smoking shambles; the keeper and the stock-tender had been killed, the horses driven off by Indians. It was growing dark. ”

“ And there were a thousand hazards of the wilderness to be incurred, a thousand obstacles of nature to be overcome before the venture could be proved practical.
The men of money had done their part now. The line was ready for the opening of traffic. On September 15, 1853, the mail-sacks started from St. Louis and San Francisco. It was up to the men of action to get them through within the schedule.
Twenty-five days was the allowance for the 2760 miles. The westbound coach reached San Francisco about twenty-four hours inside of the limit. ”

“ What with the long climbs upgrade and the bad going through loose sand or mud, it was always necessary for the driver to keep his six animals at a swinging trot when they came to a level or a downhill pull. ”

“ They came through with their scalps and the mail-sacks—only ten days behind the schedule.
Thereafter the Birch line continued its service; and letters came from San Francisco to St. Louis in about six weeks. Occasionally Indians massacred a party of travelers; now and then renegade whites or Mexicans robbed the passengers of their belongings and looted the mail-sacks. But such things were no more than any one expected. James Birch had proved his point. The southern route was practical, and in 1858 the government let a six years' contract for carrying letters twice a week between St. ”