and a special agent of
that Company, who chanced to be a passenger, seeing the predicament,
volunteered to finish the run. This he did successfully, reaching
Sacramento only ninety minutes late. Such instances are typical of the
manly cooperation that made the Pony Express the true success that it
was.

Mark Twain, who made a trip across the continent in 1860 has left this
glowing account[14] of a pony and rider that he saw while traveling
overland in a stage coach:

We had a consuming desire from the beginning, to see a pony rider; but
somehow or other all that passed us, and all that met us managed to
streak by in the night and so we heard only a whiz and a hail, and the
swift phantom of the desert was gone before we could get our heads out
of the windows. But now we were expecting one along every moment, and
would see him in broad daylight. Presently the driver exclaims:

"Here he comes!"

Every neck is stretched further and every eye strained wider away across
the endless dead level of the prairie, a black speck appears against the
sky, and it is plain that it moves. Well I should think so! In a second
it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising and
falling--sweeping toward us nearer and nearer growing more and more
distinct, more and more sharply defined--nearer and still nearer, and
the flutter of hoofs comes faintly to the ear--another instant a whoop
and a hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider's hands but no
reply and man and horse burst past our excited faces and go winging away
like the belated fragment of a storm!

So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that but for a
flake of white foam left quivering and perishing on a mail sack after
the vision had flashed by and disappeared, we might have doubted whether
we had seen any actual horse and man at all, maybe.

[9] This was the same pledge which the original firm had required of its
men. Both Russell, Majors, and Waddell, and the C. O. C. and P. P. Exp.
Co., which they incorporated, adhered to a rigid observance of the
Sabbath. They insisted on their men doing as little work as possible on
that day, and had them desist from work whenever possible. And they
stuck faithfully to these policies. Probably no concern ever won a
higher and more deserved reputation for integrity in the fulfillment of
its contracts and for business reliability than Russell, Majors, and
Waddell.

[10] Exact figures are not obtainabl