And, sure enough, Monty limped slightly as he moved about the corral.
Whitey did not know that a hair tied around a horse's leg, just above
the hock, will make the animal limp, and will not be noticeable, nor
that as a part of Bill's scheme Monty had been so treated. So Whitey was
worried about his pony, but Bill assured him that Monty would probably
be all right in a day or so--when it was too late.

"Pshaw, I'll have to ride a strange horse!" Whitey said dejectedly.

"I bin thinkin'," said Bill, "what with our bein' kinda short on stock,
just now, an' th' boys needin' all their strings for th' round-up, an'
everythin', it might be a good scheme for you t' go in th' stage. Be
sort of a change for you. You c'd ride as far as Cal Smith's ranch, an'
he'd lend you a hoss t' take you on t' th' T Up and Down."

Again the unsuspecting Whitey was delighted, as every Western boy was,
in those days, to ride on the old-fashioned but swift-moving
stage-coaches that were still the main means of communication between
many places in that sparsely settled country.

At six o'clock Whitey was waiting in the road, with Bill, and when the
coach appeared, and was halted, was hoisted up to a seat beside the
driver; a seat of honor that did not happen to be occupied that trip.
Messenger boys and telephones were unknown on the Frontier at that time.
Even the telegraph lines were limited to the course of the big railroad
that pointed its nose from St. Paul to the Pacific. So Whitey, with the
important letter sewed inside his shirt, thereby became the first
messenger boy known to the history of the West.