vages who were usually on the alert
to oppose the movements of the white race through their dominions.

California, even then, was the jewel of the Pacific. Having a
considerable population, great natural wealth, and unsurpassed climate
and fertility, she was jealously desired by both the North and the
South.

To the South, the acquisition of California meant enhanced
prestige--involving, as it would, the occupation of a large area whose
soils and climate might encourage the perpetuation of slavery; it meant
a rich possession which would afford her a strategic base for waging war
against her northern foe; it meant a romantic field in which opportunity
might be given to organize an allied republic of the Pacific, a power
which would, perchance, forcibly absorb the entire Southwest and a large
section of Northern Mexico. By thus creating counter forces the South
would effectively block the Federal Government on the western half of
the continent.

The North also desired the prestige that would come from holding
California as well as the material strength inherent in the state's
valuable resources. Moreover to hold this region would give the North a
base of operations to check her opponent in any campaign of aggression
in the far West, should the South presume such an attempt. And the
possession of California would also offer to the North the very best
means of protecting the Western frontier, one of the Union's most
vulnerable points of attack.

It was with such vital conditions that the Pony Express was identified;
it was in retaining California for the Union, and in helping
incidentally to preserve the Union, that the Express became an important
factor in American history.

Not to mention the romance, the unsurpassed courage, the unflinching
endurance, and the wonderful exploits which the routine operations of
the Pony Express involved, its identity with problems of nation-wide and
world-wide importance make its story seem worth telling. And with its
romantic existence and its place in history the succeeding pages of this
book will briefly deal.

Chapter II

Inception and Organization of the Pony Express

Following the discovery of gold in California in January 1848, that
region sprang into immediate prominence. From all parts of the country
and the remote corners of the earth came the famous Forty-niners. Amid
the chaos of a great mining camp the Anglo-Saxon love of law and order
soon asserted itself.