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Updated: May 18, 2025
Will threw them upon the waiting pony, vaulted into the saddle, and was off like the wind. The first relay station was reached on time, and Will changed with hardly a second's loss of time, while the panting, reeking animal he had ridden was left to the care of the stock-tender. This was repeated at the end of the second fifteen miles, and the last station was reached a few minutes ahead of time.
The coach soon disappeared from the sight of those at W , made the night halt on time, and as soon as he had had his supper the new driver wrapped himself in his blankets and threw himself down outdoors, declining the invitation of the stock-tender to sleep in the cabin. He was on his box on time the next morning, and with Doctor Dick by his side, went off on his run.
There was a station in western Texas to which teamsters had to haul water for nine months of the year from twenty-two miles away. At every one of these lonely outposts there were an agent and a stock-tender, and at some it was necessary to maintain what amounted to a little garrison. Arms and ammunition were provided for defense against the savages; provisions were laid in to last for weeks.
He passed the last relay, and the stock-tender said, as he was about to start: "Good-by, pard, and do you know I kinder feels as if yer was a dead man already?" "Don't you believe it, for I am worth a dozen dead men, old man," was the laughing response, and Harding drove on, with the Dead Line rising in his mind before him.
"You goes next, pard, for it won't be long afore Doctor Dick will come along and tell me that poor Hal Harding has gone under," said the sympathetic stock-tender. "Think so?" "Sure of it." "Why Doctor Dick?" "Waal, ef you gets kilt no other man in or out o' Last Chance will have ther grit to drive ther old death-trap, for thet hearse you is sittin' on is no more."
Upon reaching that place, however, I found a sorry condition of affairs, as the Indians had made a raid on the station the morning of my adventure with them, and after killing the stock-tender had driven off all the horses, so that I was unable to get a remount. I therefore continued on to Ploutz' Station twelve miles farther thus making twenty-four miles straight run with one horse.
At Cold Springs he found the station a smoking shambles; the keeper and the stock-tender had been killed, the horses driven off by Indians. It was growing dark. He rode his jaded animal across the thirty-seven-mile interval to Sand Springs, got a remount, and pressed on to the sink of the Carson.
The scene of the last tragedy was passed at a walk, the doctor glancing calmly at the spot where Dave Dockery had lost his life, along with his passengers. The first relay was made, and the stock-tender there, who had heard the news of the hold-up from Landlord Larry's men when searching for the road-agents, expressed pleasure at seeing the coach come in safe and with Doctor Dick upon the box.
In the door he saw the stock-tender lying dead, and at the same instant a woman's screams rang from the cabin near by. Turning about, Bill found himself face to face with a ruffian who was rushing from the house, brandishing a six-shooter. He asked no questions, but pulled one of the two guns he carried and fired.
When Will reached his station he related his adventure, and the stock-tender said it was "good by, California Joe" But Will had conceived a better opinion of his new friend, and he predicted his safe return. This confidence was justified by the appearance of California Joe, three months later, in the camp of the Pony Riders on the Overland trail.
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