I was now in my fifteenth year and possessed of a growing appetite for
adventure. A very few months had so dulled the memory of my sufferings
in the dugout that I had forgotten all about my resolve to forsake the
frontier forever. I looked about me for something new and still more
exciting.

I was not long in finding it. In April, 1860, the firm of Russell,
Majors & Waddell organized the wonderful "Pony Express," the most
picturesque messenger-service that this country has ever seen. The
route was from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, a
distance of two thousand miles, across the Plains, over a dreary
stretch of sagebrush and alkali desert, and through two great mountain
ranges.

The system was really a relay race against time. Stations were built at
intervals averaging fifteen miles apart. A rider's route covered three
stations, with an exchange of horses at each, so that he was expected
at the beginning to cover close to forty-five miles--a good ride when
one must average fifteen miles an hour.

The firm undertaking the enterprise had been busy for some time picking
the best ponies to be had for money, and the lightest, most wiry and
most experienced riders. This was a life that appealed to me, and I
struck for a job. I was pretty young in years, but I had already earned
a reputation for coming safe out of perilous adventures, and I was
hired.

Naturally our equipment was the very lightest. The messages which we
carried were written on the thinnest paper to be found. These we