Chapter IV

Operation, Equipment, and Business

On entering the service of the Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express Company, employees of the Pony Express were compelled to take an oath of fidelity which ran as follows: 

“I, — -, do hereby swear, before the Great and Living God, that during my engagement, and while I am an employe of Russell, Majors & Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language; that I will drink no intoxicating liquors; that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employe of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers.  So help me God."[9]

It is not to be supposed that all, nor any considerable number of the Pony Express men were saintly, nor that they all took their pledge too seriously.  Judged by present-day standards, most of these fellows were rough and unconventional; some of them were bad.  Yet one thing is certain:  in loyalty and blind devotion to duty, no group of employees will ever surpass the men who conducted the Pony Express.  During the sixteen months of its existence, the riders of this wonderful enterprise, nobly assisted by the faithful station-keepers, travelled six hundred and fifty thousand miles, contending against the most desperate odds that a lonely wilderness and savage nature could offer, with the loss of only a single mail.  And that mail happened to be of relatively small importance.  Only one rider was ever killed outright while on duty.  A few were mortally wounded, and occasionally their horses were disabled.  Yet with the one exception, they stuck grimly to the saddle or trudged manfully ahead without a horse until the next station was reached.  With these men, keeping the schedule came to be a sort of religion, a performance that must be accomplished — even though it forced them to play a desperate game the stakes of which were life and death.  Many station men and numbers of riders while off duty were murdered by Indians.  They were martyrs to the cause of patriotism and a newer and better civilization.  Yet they were hirelings, working for good wages and performing their duties in a simple, matter-of-fact way.  Their heroism was never a self-conscious trait.

The riders were young men, seldom exceeding one hundred and twenty-five pounds in weight.  Youthfulness, nerve, a wide experience on the frontier and general adaptability were the chief requisites for the Pony Express business.  Some of the greatest frontiersmen of the latter ’sixties and the ’seventies were trained in this service, either as pony riders or station men.  The latter had even a more dangerous task, since in their isolated shacks they were often completely at the mercy of Indians.