years of age. He rode in the pony service nearly a year, from
November, 1860, until the line was abandoned the following October, most
of his service being rendered before he was seventeen. Much of his time
was spent running eastward out of Fort Kearney until the telegraph had
reached that point and made the operation of the Express between the
fort and St. Joseph no longer necessary. On two occasions, Rising is
said to have maintained a continuous speed of twenty miles an hour while
carrying important dispatches between Big Sandy and Rock Creek.

One rider who was well known as "Little Yank" was a boy scarcely out of
his teens and weighing barely one hundred pounds. He rode along the
Platte River between Cottonwood Springs and old Julesburg and frequently
made one hundred miles on a single trip.

Another man named Hogan, of whom little is known, rode northwesterly out
of Julesburg across the Platte and to Mud Springs, eighty miles.

Jimmy Clark rode between various stations east of Fort Kearney, usually
between Big Sandy and Hollenburg. Sometimes his run took him as far West
as Liberty Farm on the Little Blue River.

James W. Brink, or "Dock" Brink as he was known to his associates, was
one of the early riders, entering the employ of the Pony Express Company
in April, 1860. While "Dock" made a good record as a courier, his chief
fame was gained in a fight at Rock Creek station, in which Brink and
Wild Bill[25] "cleaned out" the McCandless gang of outlaws, killing five
of their number.

Charles Cliff had an eighty-mile pony run when only seventeen years of
age, but, like Brink, young Cliff gained his greatest reputation as a
fighter,--in his case fighting Indians. It seems that while Cliff was
once freighting with a small train of nine wagons, it was attacked by a
party of one hundred Sioux Indians and besieged for three days until a
larger train approached and drove the redskins away. During the
conflict, Cliff received three bullets in his body and twenty-seven in
his clothing, but he soon recovered from his injuries, and was afterward
none the less valuable to the Pony Express service.

J. G. Kelley, later a citizen of Denver, was a veteran pony man. He
entered the employ of the company at the outset, and helped
Superintendent Roberts to lay out the route across Nevada. Along the
Carson River, tiresome stretches of corduroy road had to be built.
Kelley relates that in constructing this highway willow trees were