How the story goes, or what do we know? -- In the days of the pony -- "Capital fellows" - Russell, Majors & Waddell -- "A wild, uninhabited expanse" -- "The greatest enterprise of modern times!!" -- Pyramid Lake -- "Orphans preferred" and "The worst imps of satan" -- Captain Sir Richard Burton -- The telegraph: "Our little friend the pony is to run no more" -- After the pony -- Mark Twain ..."To the territory ahead" -- Billy Cody's big adventure -- Buffalo Bill's wild west: "Wholly free from sham and insincerity" -- The colonel and his thrilling and truthful history -- Pony Bob Haslam: a true rider of the purple sage -- "Memory at the best is treacherous": the story of the story of the pony express and how it grew -- The borderland of fable -- Broncho Charlie Miller, "the last of the pony express riders" -- The girl who remembered Johnny Frey.