other passengers and Joe Cummins kept them laughing all the way into
Bent's Old Fort, the junction of the Denver road. There we were met by
Major Pendleton and his clerk. Major Pendleton was paymaster of the
Union army on their way to Fort Lyon, Fort Larned and Fort Zara to pay
off the soldiers. He rode with me to Fort Lyon and from there he either
had to go with me by stage or take a Government conveyance, i.e. the
militia, which would take him eight or ten days. He decided to go with
me if I would agree to wait for him until he paid off the soldiers at
Fort Lyon and get an escort of soldiers. He said he had $96,000. He gave
me his package containing the $96,000 to put in the company's safe. I
was busy with my coach at the time he handed me the package and I laid
it down by the front wheel. A few minutes later he discovered the
package on the ground by the wheel of the coach and picked it up and
told me he would like for me to take care of it. I told him I would
attend to it as soon as I got loaded--we were fitting up two coaches
with mail and baggage to cross the Long Route and I would soon be
loaded, and I laid the package down again. Pretty soon the major came
around and picked up the treasured package and quite sternly asked me,
"Are you going to take care of this?" The third time he entrusted it to
me, at which time I asked him to come to the office of the stage company
with me. When I got there I drew an express receipt, signed and handed
it to him, stating that it would take $400 to express it. By paying that
amount I told him that I would place it in the safe. "Oh!" he said, "the
government would not allow me to pay express." I handed it back to him
and told him that the government then would have to be responsible for
it, not the stage company. Then the major said he would order a strong
escort to go with us across the long route. I told him that if he rode
with me he would do nothing of the sort, that if an escort went with me
I was the man to order it, then they would be under me and travel with
the same speed I traveled. I told him if he ordered the escort he would