Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/65

 strained every muscle to reach his destination without the loss of a minute. His rider was a small man, weighing not more than a hundred and twenty pounds, and his riding revealed a master of the art. He leaned slightly forward in the saddle, the front of his hat standing straight up as if plastered against his forehead, the ends of the handkerchief looped about his neck fluttering in the gale caused by his own swiftness, while he occasionally pricked the ribs of his horse with his spurs, though such urgency was hardly needed.

As he flashed opposite, the rhythmic thump of the pony’s hoofs on the sod was heard by the emigrants, all of whom were gazing at man and animal. The former’s garments fitted so snugly that only the fringes over and back of the shoulders, and those on the thighs quivered. The trousers were thrust into the tops of his boots, whose heels were high and pointed, and after the fashion among cowmen and plainsmen.

The watchers identified his character at once, and needed not the sight of the broad flat flaps fastened across the saddle, one in front and the other behind him. He glanced toward the