Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/51

 doing so, but conditions often arose in which horse and rider had greatly to exceed this amount of work.

In the month of May, 1860, a caravan of emigrants was slowly making its way through what was then the Territory of Nebraska. It was following the southern bank of the Platte River, and was still more than a hundred miles from Julesburg, just over the border in Colorado. The train was smaller than most of those which crossed the plains during those years when the lure of gold still drew men and their families from every quarter of the globe. The outfit consisted of six Conestoga wagons, each with six span of oxen, no mules, eight horses and twelve men, two-thirds of them with wives and from one to five children. In addition to the men, two youths, not quite grown, rode with them. One was Alden Payne and the other his African servant, Jethro Mix.

The head of the party, which was bound to California, was Abner Fleming—a middle-aged man, with a wife, but no children. He was an old acquaintance of Hugh Payne, the father of Alden, and willingly took the two youths under his charge while making the long