Mahonri Bishop's Pony Express Ride — Prayer and a Faithful Horse Carry Him Through a Hail of Arrows (Between Fillmore and Panguitch, Utah, 1860s)

Mahonri Bishop, a son of pioneer blacksmith William Henry Bishop of Fillmore, carried the mail between Fillmore and Panguitch in the years when Indian raiders made the route dangerous. One night a band of Indians surrounded him and ordered him off his horse. He was on Old Bally, his favorite horse — unafraid and very fast. Mahonri spoke softly to the horse; Old Bally lunged forward and outran the Indians, who shot arrows thick and fast. "Mahonri prayed and the Lord took him, safe and sound, to the next station." This account was recorded by his sister Savalla Bishop Melville in the family biography; no first-person account by the rider survives in that source.