Every trip of the Pony Express was a race against time, over blizzard-swept mountains, across blazing deserts, and through the heart of hostile Indian country.
Between San Francisco and St. Joseph, Missouri, eighty relay stations were built. An equal number of lightweight, hard-riding young men and boys pushed their horses to the limit of their endurance to carry the mail almost two thousand miles in ten days and nights of merciless riding.
Each rider as given a bright red flannel shirt, blue trousers, a Bible, and a Colt revolver. He needed them all—particularly the revolver. Only one of the riders was killed by Indians, but several were wounded, and many more outran pursuers in breath-taking races against sudden death.
Ralph Moody has written a thrilling and authentic account of the brave young riders who during 1860 and '61 wrote a glowing chapter of western history and galloped to immortality.
Ralph Moody rides as well as any of the daredevil Pony Express boy. He rode the western cattle ranges from the age of ten. In his teens he was a trick rider who could bring his galloping horse to a sudden stop, turn a somersault in the air, and light on his feet. He was born in 1898, is the father of three grown children and has written four excellent books of autobiography, including his famous Little Britches. Young readers all over the country have been begging Mr. Moody to write another book about boys and horses. Here it is, and one of his best.
His tremendous interest in horse and horse racing and his experience as the illustrator of many articles on these subjects make Robert Riger the perfect artist for this title. Leonard Derwinski is an outstanding cartographer.
—from the dust jacket
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