Their
object being well known, they had the best wishes of every hand on the
road. People remained up for them all hours of the night, no matter at
what station they were expected. The warmest and most comfortable of
meals were always ready for them, for which no charge would be taken on
any account. In Utah, a deputation of Mormons galloped alongside them
for forty miles to help them over some points of the road that had been
often found difficult. The season was the finest known for many years.
In short, as an old Californian said as he saw them shooting over the
rickety bridge that crossed the Bear River at Corinne: "they had
everything in their favor--_luck_ as well as _pluck_!"
The rate at which they performed this terrible ride across the
Continent and the progress they made each day, some readers may consider
worthy of a few more items for the sake of future reference. Discarding
the ordinary overland mail stage as altogether too slow for their
purpose, they hired at Julesburg a strong, well built carriage, large
enough to hold them all comfortably; but this they had to replace twice
before they came to their journey's end. Their team always consisted of
the best six horses that could be found, and their driver was the famous
Hank Monk of California, who, happening to be in Julesburg about that
time, volunteered to see them safely landed in Cisco on the summit of
the Sierra Nevada.
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