Eight horses were stolen from Smith's Creek on last Monday, supposedly
by road agents.

The above are random extracts from frontier newspapers, printed while
the Pony Express was running. The Express could never have existed on
its high plane of efficiency, without an abundance of coolheaded,
hardened men; men who knew not fear and who were expert - though
sometimes in vain - in all the wonderful arts of self-preservation
practiced on the old frontier. That these employees could have performed
even the simplest of their duties, without stirring and almost
incredible adventures, it is needless to assert.

The faithful relation of even a considerable number of the thrilling
experiences to which the "Pony" men were subjected would discount
fiction. Yet few of these adventures have been recorded. Today, after a
lapse of over fifty years, nearly all of the heroes who achieved them
have gone out on that last long journey from which no man returns. While
history can pay the tribute of preserving some anecdotes of them and
their collective achievements, it must be forever silent as to many of
their personal acts of heroism.

While lasting praise is due the faithful station men who, in their
isolation, so often bore the murderous attacks of Indians and bandits,
it is, perhaps, to the riders that the seeker of romance is most likely
to turn. It was the riders' skill and fortitude that made the operation
of the line possible. Both riders and hostlers shared the same
privations, often being reduced to the necessity of eating wolf meat and
drinking foul or brackish water.