But there proved to be more in the doing than the saying . After Bolivar Roberts checked in at Carson City with his soldier escort, one more Pony trip came through, arriving at San Francisco, via river steamer, on July 1st. Then there was silence. For two long weeks Californians waited for the promised semiweekly express. Butterfield Overland Mail coaches pulling into San Francisco carried word that the couriers had been leaving the eastern end on the new schedule. Yet none was getting through. Charitably, the friendly Alta concluded that the route had not been restocked.
Actually, it was the same old trouble-Indians. The big rush to institute semiweekly departures simply failed to consider the redskin problem. Winnemucca’s Pah-Utes may have been whipped, but the Gosh-Utes and other tribes of the Shoshone nation were still on the rampage east of Washoe. Finally, in the middle of July, a rider reached Carson City. From there Finney testily explained the difficulty in a telegram to the impatient press. “There was no reason to expect the Pony more than day earlier than it came,” he remonstrated. “The express had to travel 200 miles with an escort and this, of course, detained it.”