The very fall after Dave arrived in Denver Mr. Creighton finished his telegraph line into Salt Lake City, and won the $40,000 a year prize offered by the Government. The California company met him there; the first message was flashed through from coast to coast (“The Pacific to the Atlantic sends greeting,” it said; “and may both oceans be dry before a foot of all the land that lies between shall belong to any other than a united country”); and, as Captain Brown had predicted, the Pony Express must stop. The Holladay stages carried the mails. Every morning at eight o’clock sharp they left Atchison below St. Joseph on the Missouri River; at Latham the Salt Lake coaches proceeded on to Salt Lake and the Denver coaches turned south to Denver――and usually got in with such regularity that Denver people set their watches by them! There never had been such a stage coach magnate as Ben Holladay. His six- and nine-passenger Concord coaches were the best that could be built――and on the main line alone he used 100. His horses were the best that could be bought――and of these and of mules he had, on the main line, 3000. His drivers were paid the best salaries――$125 and $150 a month. And for carrying the mails he received from the Government $650,000 a year. When, several times a year, he went over his whole lines he travelled like a whirlwind and caused a tremendous commotion. But speedily the regular operation of the Holladay Overland Express was badly interrupted, for the Indians began to ravage up and down. All the way from central Kansas to the mountains they destroyed stations and attacked stages. The stages ran two at a time, for company, and were protected by squads of soldiers; but even then they did not always get through, and Denver was cut off from the outside world for weeks at a time. Whenever Mr. Baxter started out as messenger Dave was afraid that he would not come back alive; but somehow he managed to make the trip, although he was apt to return in a coach riddled with arrows and bullets. The summer of 1864, when Davy was almost seventeen and old enough to enter the Military Academy, was the worst season of all for Indian raids. Stations and ranches for hundreds of miles at a stretch were pillaged, and the stages ceased altogether between the mountains and the Missouri. Then, in the fall, there came a lull――of which Dave was heartily glad, for he had been ordered to report at Fort Leavenworth for examination. His appointment had come, signed by Abraham Lincoln. “I’ll see you through to Atchison, Dave,” said Mr. Baxter; “and to Leavenworth, too. The return trip will be my last run.” “Why so, Ben?” asked Davy, astonished.