for lack of funds.

"I'll give you one thousand dollars for the entire rights to the thing,"
said a Hartford business man to Colt.

Colt took a couple of days to think it over. He did not have any money or
any prospect of money, and a thousand dollars was a big temptation.
However, he decided not to take it.

"It wouldn't pay me for the work I put into it," he said. "I'm going to
try again."

The new attempt met with more success, for toward the end of the Seminole
War in Florida the United States soldiers had begun to appreciate the
effectiveness of the Colt revolver. Then the adventurers in Texas and
through the Middle West came to look upon the six-shooter as the most
valuable part of their outfit, and there was a sufficiently large band of
these adventurers to cause a fair-sized demand. This enabled the Colt
Company to struggle on until the Mexican War became certain.

Then General Taylor, who had used the Colt revolver in his Indian
campaigns, recommended that the United States troops be furnished with it.
The little factory in Hartford suddenly found itself confronted with an
order for twenty thousand revolvers. It was necessary to work day and
night to meet the demand, and while this was going on Colt enlarged his
place of business in anticipation of future orders of like magnitude. They
came plentifully enough during the two years of the Mexican War, for the
Colt was the only small arm that played any part in that contest.

After the war, business did not fall off materially, for the great Western
migration was on, and every one who made it went armed. The pioneer and
the traveler depended upon the Colt in an emergency, and the workmanship
was so good that the revolver itself never failed. It played a great part
again in the Civil War, for most of the Northern troops, in addition to
their Springfield rifles, carried Colt revolvers. Thus the idea that a
runaway boy evolved during his trip to India helped to win the Mexican
War, to settle the West, and to decide the Civil War.

THE FIRST EXPRESSMAN.

A Great Industry Began When a Man Decided
to Carry Parcels Between
Boston and New York.

William Frederick Harnden, when quite a young man, worn out by his sixteen
hours a day work in the office of the Boston and Worcester Railroad, came
to New York for a short rest. That was in 1839, and there were in the
United States 2,818 miles of railroad, all built within the previous ten
years, as against th