spring of water, and, thus fortified, they were to remain, in a state of
siege, if necessary, until the marauders withdrew from that vicinity. Of
course they implored Haslam to remain with them and not risk his life
venturing away with the mail. But the mail must go; and the schedule,
hard as it was, must be maintained. "Bob" had no conception of fear, and
so he galloped away, after an hour's rest. And back into Bucklands he
came unharmed, after having suffered only three and a half hours of
delay. Superintendent Marley, who was still present when the daring
rider returned, at once raised his bonus from fifty to one hundred
dollars.

Nor was this all of Haslam's great achievement. The west-bound mail
would soon arrive, and there was nobody to take his regular run. So
after resting an hour and a half, he resumed the saddle and hurried back
along his old trail, over the Sierras to Friday's Station. Then "Bob"
rested after having ridden three hundred and eighty miles with scarcely
eleven hours of lay-off, and within a very few hours of regular schedule
time all the way. In speaking of this performance afterwards, Haslam[31]
modestly admitted that he was "rather tired," but that "the excitement
of the trip had braced him up to stand the journey."

The most widely known of all the pony riders is William F. Cody--usually
called "Bill," who in early life resided in Kansas and was
raised amid the exciting scenes of frontier life. Cody had an unusually
dangerous route between Red Buttes and Three Crossings. The latter place
was on the Sweetwater River, and derived its name from the fact that the
stream which followed the bed of a rocky canon, had to be crossed three
times within a space of sixty yards. The water coming down from the
mountains, was always icy cold and the current swift, deep, and
treacherous. The whole bottom of the canon was often submerged, and in
attempting to follow its course along the channel of the stream, both
horse and rider were liable to plunge at any time into some abysmal
whirlpool. Besides the excitement which the Three Crossings and an
Indian country furnished, Cody's trail ran through a region that was
often frequented by desperadoes. Furthermore, he had to ford the North
Platte at a point where the stream was half a mile in width and in
places twelve feet deep. Though the current was at times slow, dangers
from quicksand were always to be feared on these prairie rivers. Cody,
then but a youth,