PART SECOND. LESSON I. THE PONY-RIDER. Měsʼsen ġer, one who carries | Post'age, the price paid for a message. carrying letters and papers. ¤ŏn'ti nent, a vast extent of E eon'o mized, saved. land. Preç'i piçe, a steep, overhanging place. Spĕe tā ́tor, one who looks on. T% 10 the western-bound emigrant train, creeping slowly along, day after day, in a cloud of stifling dust, with the slow pace of its ox-teams, the journey across the great Plains must have been dreary enough; but to our little party, whirled along at a splendid rate in one of Holladay's fast mail-coaches, strange sights and stirring incidents enlivened every fleeting mile. One object we were momentarily expecting, and in a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks and watching for the "pony-rider"-the fleet messenger who sped across the continent from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters nineteen hundred miles in eight days! | 2. The pony-rider was usually a little bit of a inan, brimful of spirit and endurance. No matter what time of the day or night his watch came on, and no matter whether it was mild or stormy weather, or whether his "beat" was over a level, straight road, or a crazy trail over mountain crags and precipices, or whether it led through peaceful regions, or regions that swarmed with hostile Indians, he must be always ready to leap into the saddle and be off like the wind. 3. There was no idle time for a pony-rider on duty. He rode fifty miles without stopping, by daylight, moonlight, starlight, or through the blackness of darkness, just as it happened. He rode a splendid horse that was born for a racer, and fed and lodged like a gentleman. 4. He kept him at his utmost speed for ten miles, and then, as he came crashing up to the station, found two men holding a fresh, impatient steed that was to bear him further on. The transfer of rider and mailbag was made in the twinkling of an eye, and away flew the eager pair, and were out of sight before the spectator could get hardly a ghost of a look. 5. Both horse and rider went "flying light." The rider's dress was thin and he was cumbered with no waste of cloth. Weight and bulk were economized in everything he wore. He carried no arms; he carried nothing that was not absolutely necessary, for even the postage on his literary freight was five dollars a letter. 6. His horse was stripped of all unnecessary weight, too. He wore light shoes or none at all. The little flat mail pockets strapped under the rider's thigh would each hold about the bulk of a child's primer. They held many and many an important business chapter and newspaper letter, but these were written on paper as airy and thin as gold-leaf, so as to be packed in the smallest space. 7. The pony-rider traveled about two hundred and fifty miles a day. There were about eighty pony riders in the saddle all the time, night and day, stretching in a long scattering line from Missouri to California, forty flying eastward and forty toward the west, and among them making four hundred gallant horses do wondrous work. 8. We had a burning desire from the beginning, to see a pony rider, but somehow or other all that passed us, and all that we met, managed to streak by in the night. We heard only a whiz and a hail, and the swift phantom of the desert was gone before we could get our heads out of the window. 9. But now we were expecting one along every moment, and would see him in broad daylight. Presently the driver exclaims, "Here he comes!" and every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider. Away across the dead level of the prairie a black speck appears against the sky, and we can see that it moves! 10. In a second or two, it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising and falling, sweeping toward us nearer and nearer, and coming plainer into view, till soon the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear. In another instant a whoop and a hurrah from the upper deck of our coach, a wave of the rider's hand, but no reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and go winging away like a belated fragment of á storm. MARK TWAIN. LESSON II. HOW LAMP-CHIMNEYS ARE MADE. PART FIRST. Spa'cious, roomy. Ärched, curved. TE Port'-hōles, holes made in the Di am'e ter, a straight line F. E STRATE Bulb, an egg-shaped body. HE old gentleman led the way into a spacious human life. strange lights and flames and Furnaces were glowing; men and boys were at work before the fires, or darting to and fro. |