It takes men for that business." "I rode two months last year on Bill Trotter's division, sir, and filled the bill then; and I think I am better able to ride now," said I.
"What! are you the boy that was riding there, and was called the youngest rider on the road ?" "I am the same boy," I replied, confident that everything was now all right for me.
"I have heard of you before.

You are a year or so older now, and I think you can stand it.

I'll give you a trial anyhow and if you weaken you can come back to Horseshoe Station and tend stock." That ended our first interview.

The next day he assigned me to duty on the road from Red Buttes on the North Platte, to the Three Crossings of the Sweetwater--a distance of seventy-six miles--and I began riding at once.

It was a long piece of road, but I was equal to the undertaking; and soon afterwards had an opportunity to exhibit my power of endurance as a pony express rider.
One day when I galloped into Three Crossings, my home station, I found that the rider who was expected to take the trip out on my arrival, had got into a drunken row the night before and had been killed; and that there was no one to fill his place.