A quick glance from Bascom—a glance that
I understood—then:
“Why, bless my soul, I never heard of such a
thing. Man, it is impossible.”
“I knew you would say it. I’ll fetch
the cat.”
He went in the house. Bascom said:
“There—what did I tell you?
Now, that is the way to handle Eckert. You
see, I have petted him along patiently, and put his
suspicions to sleep. I am glad we came.
You tell the boys about it when you go back.
Cat eat a cocoanut—oh, my! Now,
that is just his way, exactly—he will tell
the absurdest lie, and trust to luck to get out of
it again.
“Cat eat a cocoanut—the innocent
fool!”
Eckert approached with his cat, sure enough.
“I’ll hold the cat—you bring
a cocoanut.”
Eckert split one open, and chopped up some pieces.
Bascom smuggled a wink to me, and proffered a slice
of the fruit to puss. She snatched it, swallowed
it ravenously, and asked for more!
We rode our two miles in silence, and wide apart.
At least I was silent, though Bascom cuffed his horse
and cursed him a good deal, notwithstanding the horse
was behaving well enough. When I branched off
homeward, Bascom said:
“Keep the horse till morning. And—you
need not speak of this —foolishness to
the boys.”
In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching
our necks and watching for the “pony-rider”—the
fleet messenger who sped across the continent from
St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters nineteen hundred
miles in eight days! Think of that for perishable
horse and human flesh and blood to do! The pony-rider
was usually a little bit of a man, brimful of spirit
and endurance. No matter what time of the day
or night his watch came on, and no matter whether
it was winter or summer, raining, snowing, hailing,
or sleeting, or whether his “beat” was
a level straight road or a crazy trail over mountain
crags and precipices, or whether it led through peaceful
regions or regions that swarmed with hostile Indians,
he must be always ready to leap into the saddle and
be off like the wind! There was no idling-time
for a pony-rider on duty. He rode fifty miles
without stopping, by daylight, moonlight, starlight,
or through the blackness of darkness—just
as it happened. He rode a splendid horse that
was born for a racer and fed and lodged like a gentleman;
kept him at his utmost speed for ten miles, and then,
as he came crashing up to the station where 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.
