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Show TALES OF THE OLD j FRONTIER By ELMO SCOTT WATSON J ii ( 1933, Western Newspaper Union. ) PONY BOB HASLAM'S RIDE AT ONE of the most critical periods in American history, the Pony Express Ex-press was the only means of rapid communication to bind the East and West together, and well did the" brave combination of gallant horseflesh and dauntless manhood live up to the tradition tra-dition of "Get the mail through no matter what the peril of desert, blizzard bliz-zard or hostile Indians get it through !" This is the story of how "Pony Bob" Haslam "got It through." One day in the summer of 1800, when Haslam had finished his run to Reed's station on the Carson river, Nevada, he found that settlers had commandeered all of the horses for a quick dash against raiding Piutes. Haslam was due to lay off at Buck-lands, Buck-lands, the end of his 75-mile stretch of the express route, but the next rider was 111 and the division superintendent superin-tendent offered Bob a $50 bonus to go on. Haslam accepted and started on the lonely ride of 35 miles to Carson Sink. Here he changed horses, sped on through 37 miles of alkali desert to Cold Springs, transferred to a new mount and rode 30 miles more to Smith's creek, where he delivered the pouches to his successor. Then, after this ride of 187 miles without a stop except to change horses, he rested for nine hours and was ready to go back with the eastbound malL But tragedy was ahead of him. At Cold Springs he found that the Indians had killed the station keeper and run off all the horses. Stopping only long enough to water his weary mount, Haslam Has-lam pushed on and by sheer luck got through a country swarming with hos-tiles hos-tiles and arrived safely at Sand Springs. At Carson Sink, the next station, ha found 15 men garrisoned in the stn-tion, stn-tion, which had been attacked only a few hours previously. They tried to persuade him to remain until it was certain that the Indians had left the vicinity, but he refused. After resting nn hour he galloped away and reached Bucklands safely, only three hours and a half late on his regular schedule. His bonus was immediately raised to ; $ioo. But Pony Bob was not done yet. ' The westbound mail would soon ar-' ar-' rive and there was no one except him- self to carry it on. So back over the trail he went, and at Friday's station he finally found his duty ended. He had ridden 3S0 miles with less than eleven hours lay-off, and there was not an hour of his riding time when he was not in danger of capture by the Piutes and death at the torture stake. |
