Cody rode the Pony Express, and he was first hired by Jules Reni and put in '"Bill Trotter's division." He was the youngest rider on the entire two thousand miles of the road. He quit the prairie and went to the mountains in the summer, and met Joe Slade at Horseshoe station, where he offered his services, but Joe Slade said he was too young. Cody then gave him a letter from Trotter, and he was immediately employed. Slade always told Cody when he started on a trip to "lookout for your scalp."

One of the dare-devils of the road was Chas. Cliff, who rode a division from Scottsbluff station west through to Sand Hill station. On his return trip once he was attacked by the Indians in Mitchell Gap, and when he arrived at Scottsbluff station and was taken from his horse, he had three bullets in his body and twenty-seven through his clothes.

Joseph A. Slade was something of a green but vicious looking fellow when he applied for service with the Overland stage people. Mark Twain tells that few were asked for references or credentials in the west for this employment, but they did ask Slade if he had ever been at St. Louis or New Orleans, and Slade replied : "No, I haint never been at Horleans, but I'll tell you where I have been. I've been mighty nigh all over three counties in Illinois." Slade's seemed to have been a wonderful nerve, for he drove stage through the wildest part of the road and shot down the road agents on sight. It was something different. Heretofore at the sight of desperadoes, the drivers would whip their horses into a fury of getting away, but now Slade would simply slow down and the first man within range would "get his." When H.