e stood two men holding fast a fresh,
impatient steed, the transfer of rider and mail-bag was made in the
twinkling of an eye, and away flew the eager pair and were out of sight
before the spectator could get hardly the ghost of a look. Both rider
and horse went "flying light." The rider's dress was thin, and fitted
close; he wore a "round-about," and a skull-cap, and tucked his
pantaloons into his boot-tops like a race-rider. He carried no arms--he
carried nothing that was not absolutely necessary, for even the postage
on his literary freight was worth five dollars a letter.

He got but little frivolous correspondence to carry--his bag had business
letters in it, mostly. His horse was stripped of all unnecessary weight,
too. He wore a little wafer of a racing-saddle, and no visible blanket.
He wore light shoes, or none at all. The little flat mail-pockets
strapped under the rider's thighs would each hold about the bulk of a
child's primer. They held many and many an important business chapter
and newspaper letter, but these were written on paper as airy and thin as
gold-leaf, nearly, and thus bulk and weight were economized. The
stage-coach traveled about a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five miles
a day (twenty-four hours), the pony-rider about two hundred and fifty.
There were about eighty pony-riders in the saddle all the time, night and
day, stretching in a long, scattering procession from Missouri to
California, forty flying eastward, and forty toward the west, and among
them making four hundred gallant horses earn a stirring livelihood and
see a deal of scenery every single day in the year.

We had 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 or two 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