Melville Baughn, usually known as “Mel,” had a pony run between Fort Kearney and Thirty-two-mile Creek.  Once while “laying off” between trips, a thief made off with his favorite horse.  Scarcely had the miscreant gotten away when Baughn discovered the loss.  Hastily saddling another steed, “Mel” gave pursuit, and though handicapped, because the outlaw had the pick of the stable, Baughn’s superior horsemanship, even on an inferior mount, soon told.  After a chase of several miles, he forced the fellow so hard that he abandoned the stolen animal at a place called Loup Fork, and sneaked away.  Recovering the horse, Baughn then returned to his station, found a mail awaiting him, and was off on his run without further delay.  With him and his fellow employes, running down a horse thief was but a trifling incident and an annoyance merely because of the bother and delay which it necessitated.  Baughn was afterward hanged for murder at Seneca, but his services to the Pony Express were above reproach.

Another Eastern Division man was Jack Keetly, who also rode from St. Joseph to Seneca, alternating at times with Frey and Baughn.  Keetley’s greatest performance, and one of the most remarkable ever achieved in the service, was riding from Rock Creek to St. Joseph; then back to his starting point and on to Seneca, and from Seneca once more to Rock Creek - three hundred and forty miles without rest.  He traveled continuously for thirty-one hours, his entire run being at the rate of eleven miles an hour.  During the last five miles of his journey, he fell asleep in the saddle and in this manner concluded his long trip.

Don C. Rising, who afterwards settled in Northern Kansas, was born in Painted Post, Steuben County, New York, in 1844, and came West when thirteen 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.