Buffalo Bill, Peacemaker
OR,
ON A TROUBLESOME TRAIL
BY
Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
Author of the celebrated “Buffalo Bill” stories published in the
BORDER STORIES. For other titles see catalogue.
[Illustration: (Colophon)]
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
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| Copyright, 1910 |
| By STREET & SMITH |
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| Buffalo Bill, Peacemaker |
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(Printed in the United States of America)
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
CONTENTS
PAGE
IN APPRECIATION OF WILLIAM F. CODY 1
I. THE PRISONER IN THE DUGOUT. 5
II. THE GAME OF “FREEZE OUT.” 12
III. FLUSH DAYS IN TEXAS. 31
IV. THE SKY PILOT TAKES A HAND. 44
V. “COME-ALONGS.” 51
VI. PARDS IN COUNCIL. 58
VII. AT THE H-P RANCH. 64
VIII. A DASH FOR FREEDOM. 71
IX. DUTCH COURAGE. 84
X. IN TROUBLED WATERS. 97
XI. THE MAN WITH A WARNING. 109
XII. AT LIGE BENNER’S RANCH. 121
XIII. A FIENDISH PLOT. 134
XIV. THE HUNCHBACK’S QUICK WIT. 141
XV. A “FLASH IN THE PAN.” 148
XVI. HELD BY THE ENEMY. 155
XVII. THE PLOT AT HACKAMORE. 168
XVIII. BUFFALO BILL’S SUMMONS. 175
XIX. AT ODDS WITH THE SHERIFF. 182
XX. IN A GOOD CAUSE. 196
XXI. LONG ODDS. 202
XXII. PEACE ON THE BRAZOS. 209
XXIII. RED THUNDERBOLT. 214
XXIV. THE QUARREL. 225
XXV. SIM PIERCE BRINGS NEWS. 244
XXVI. THE MOB FROM PHELPS’ RANCH. 257
XXVII. BENNER’S CHANGE OF HEART. 270
XXVIII. IN THE ENEMY’S CAMP. 282
XXIX. RED STEVE. 295
XXX. CONCLUSION. 307
IN APPRECIATION OF WILLIAM F. CODY
(BUFFALO BILL).
It is now some generations since Josh Billings, Ned Buntline, and
Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, intimate friends of Colonel William F.
Cody, used to forgather in the office of Francis S. Smith, then
proprietor of the _New York Weekly_. It was a dingy little office on
Rose Street, New York, but the breath of the great outdoors stirred
there when these old-timers got together. As a result of these
conversations, Colonel Ingraham and Ned Buntline began to write of
the adventures of Buffalo Bill for Street & Smith.
Colonel Cody was born in Scott County, Iowa, February 26, 1846.
Before he had reached his teens, his father, Isaac Cody, with his
mother and two sisters, migrated to Kansas, which at that time was
little more than a wilderness.
When the elder Cody was killed shortly afterward in the Kansas
“Border War,” young Bill assumed the difficult rôle of family
breadwinner. During 1860, and until the outbreak of the Civil War,
Cody lived the arduous life of a pony-express rider. Cody volunteered
his services as government scout and guide and served throughout
the Civil War with Generals McNeil and A. J. Smith. He was a
distinguished member of the Seventh Kansas Cavalry.
During the Civil War, while riding through the streets of St. Louis,
Cody rescued a frightened schoolgirl from a band of annoyers. In true
romantic style, Cody and Louisa Federci, the girl, were married March
6, 1866.
In 1867 Cody was employed to furnish a specified amount of buffalo
meat to the construction men at work on the Kansas Pacific Railroad.
It was in this period that he received the sobriquet “Buffalo Bill.”
In 1868 and for four years thereafter Colonel Cody served as scout
and guide in campaigns against the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians. It was
General Sheridan who conferred on Cody the honor of chief of scouts
of the command.
After completing a period of service in the Nebraska legislature,
Cody joined the Fifth Cavalry in 1876, and was again appointed chief
of scouts.
Colonel Cody’s fame had reached the East long before, and a great
many New Yorkers went out to see him and join in his buffalo hunts,
including such men as August Belmont, James Gordon Bennett, Anson
Stager, and J. G. Heckscher. In entertaining these visitors at Fort
McPherson, Cody was accustomed to arrange wild-West exhibitions. In
return his friends invited him to visit New York. It was upon seeing
his first play in the metropolis that Cody conceived the idea of
going into the show business.
Assisted by Ned Buntline, novelist, and Colonel Ingraham, he started
his “Wild West” show, which later developed and expanded into “A
Congress of the Rough Riders of the World,” first presented at Omaha,
Nebraska. In time it became a familiar yearly entertainment in the
great cities of this country and Europe. Many famous personages
attended the performances, and became his warm friends, including Mr.
Gladstone, the Marquis of Lorne, King Edward, Queen Victoria, and the
Prince of Wales, now King of England.
At the outbreak of the Sioux, in 1890 and 1891, Colonel Cody served
at the head of the Nebraska National Guard. In 1895 Cody took up the
development of Wyoming Valley by introducing irrigation. Not long
afterward he became judge advocate general of the Wyoming National
Guard.
Colonel Cody (Buffalo Bill) died in Denver, Colorado, on January
10, 1917. His legacy to a grateful world was a large share in
the development of the West, and a multitude of achievements in
horsemanship, marksmanship, and endurance that will live for ages.
His life will continue to be a leading example of the manliness,
courage, and devotion to duty that belonged to a picturesque phase
of American life now passed, like the great patriot whose career it
typified, into the Great Beyond.
BUFFALO BILL, PEACEMAKER.
CHAPTER I.
THE PRISONER IN THE DUGOUT.
Fate was in a very capricious mood when Buffalo Bill and his pards
carried their activities into the Lone Star State. They galloped over
the plains and plunged full tilt into one of the most surprising
misplays ever made by that arrant gamester--Chance.
There was a triangle of blunders, and it so happened that there was
a pard in each corner, ready to take advantage of what came his way
and turn misfortune into fortune for Cattleman Perry, his daughter
Hattie, and a worthy cowboy of the name of Dunbar. The powerful
clique of cattle barons were beaten at their own game of freeze
out--and for this they had the scout and his pards to thank.
Buffalo Bill dropped into his corner of the complication on the wide
grazing grounds, en route to the town of Hackamore, where he was to
join Wild Bill, old Nomad, the trapper, who had shared many dangers
with the scout, Baron von Schuitzenhauser, his Dutch pard, and Little
Cayuse, his Indian trailer. And when it is said that he “dropped”
into the complication, the statement is to be taken literally.
It was a night, a night made brilliant by moon and stars. The scout
was two days from Portales, New Mexico, having diverged from the
trail taken by his pards in order to halt for half a day in the town
of Texico.
Buffalo Bill was off the trail, a plainsman having shown him a short
cut that was to save many miles of saddle work. As Bear Paw forged
ahead at a slow, steady gallop, the scout rocked gently in his
saddle, half dozing.
He did not see the stovepipe that rose out of the ground in front
of him, nor did he see the little ridgelike lifting of the earth
adjacent to the stovepipe.
Bear Paw saw the pipe, however, and to evade it attempted to cross
the small elevation. Intelligent horse though he was, how was he to
know that elevation was not solid earth?
The black charger was in for a surprise. It was sprung with
demoralizing suddenness.
Two strides carried Bear Paw over the high point of the ridge; a
third stride brought a crash under his rear hoofs, and the after part
of his body slumped downward.
A startled yell, seemingly coming out of the very earth, smote on the
scout’s ears.
Caught at a disadvantage by the accident, Buffalo Bill was thrown
backward out of his saddle and clear of the struggling horse.
Bear Paw’s front hoofs were on solid ground and, with a prodigious
effort, he saved himself from sinking and clambered to safety beyond
the deceptive ridge. But the scout dropped through the breach,
grabbed at a log rafter, missed it, and fell in a huddle for a
distance of ten feet.
He brought up on all fours, jarred through and through and blinking
in a cloud of dust and a flood of lamplight. A clutter of dirt and
broken poles lay around him.
The transformation from an easy gallop over the cool, open plain to
this underground hole with its light and dust, had been so abrupt
that the scout was taken at a loss.
But he was not the only one taken at a loss. In front of him, as the
flurry of dust was wafted aside, he saw a strapping figure in hickory
shirt, homespun trousers and cowhide boots--a figure topped with a
mop of red hair, under which was a lean, leathery face.
The face of the figure was blank. Two washed-out blue eyes stared at
the scout; and the scout, on hands and knees, stared back.
“Who in blazes are ye?” demanded the red-headed man, all at once
finding his voice.
“A stranger and a traveler,” answered the scout, the ludicrous nature
of the situation gradually appealing to him. “A man who--er--a-tchoo!”
“What d’ye mean by knockin’ a hole in the roof an’ slammin’ in on
me like this?” went on the other, coming out of his surprise with a
manner distinctly hostile.
The scout picked himself up slowly, felt of his bruises, and gave
vent to a grewsome laugh.
“If you think, amigo, that I meant to knock a hole in your roof,”
said he, “you’ve another guess coming. If I had planned to pay you a
visit I wouldn’t have gone about it like this, would I?”
“How do I know who ye are, or what ye’d do?” fumed the other, far
and away more savage than the scout thought the mishap warranted. “I
don’t want no truck with ye, anyways. If ye didn’t allow ter pay me a
visit, an’ if ye ain’t here from ch’ice, then yore next move is ter
git out as quick as ye come in. Them’s the stairs”--he waved a hand
toward a ladder that led upward to a flat door in the roof--“an’ at
the same time we says hello, we also says good-by. Start yerself.”
“I’m not inclined to stay here any longer than you want to have me,”
answered the scout, “but I landed with something of a jolt. If it’s
all the same to you, I’ll just catch my breath before I try the
stairs.”
“It ain’t all the same ter me,” barked the man. “I want ye ter go,
an’ I want ye ter go ter oncet! With this ter back up the invite, I
reckon ye won’t stand none on the order ter hike.”
The red-haired man made a swipe at his belt and lifted a hairy hand
with a six-shooter. Buffalo Bill looked him in the eye and then
coolly sat down on a two-legged stool that happened to be handy.
“I’ve heard a good deal about Texas hospitality,” said he, “but
you’re giving it a hardware twist that I don’t like. And when I don’t
like a thing,” he added significantly, “I’m apt to make it pretty
plain.”
“Ye kain’t run in any rannikaboo on me,” snorted the red-haired
person, jabbing the air with the point of his gun. “Ye say yer
drappin’ in was a accident. I’m lettin’ it go at that, an’ givin’ ye
a chance ter depart without any fireworks. An’ I ain’t sayin’ nothin’
about the damage ye done ter the dugout, nuther. Pick up yore hat an’
scatter. I’ll count three. When I say ‘one,’ ye’ll reach fer the hat;
when I say ‘two,’ ye’ll be on the stairs; an’ when I say ‘three,’
ye’ll either be through that door in the roof or I’ll drop ye in yer
tracks.”
The barbarous methods of this red-haired man were utterly uncalled
for. He was showing a spirit that needed taming.
Buffalo Bill dropped his eyes to the litter on the floor. His hat
lay there, and from under the brim of the hat showed two inches of
revolver-muzzle. One of the scout’s six-shooters had been jarred from
his belt and had fallen under the sombrero.
“One!”
The word was a yelp, and the blued barrel of the Texan’s gun looked
the scout full in the face.
“All right,” said Buffalo Bill cheerily.
He reached for his hat with both hands. But only one hand picked up
the hat; the other caught the handle of the six-shooter.
Then something happened which the Texan had not been looking for. As
the scout arose from the stool, the report of a firearm split the
air. A bullet passed through the crown of the sombrero, singed the
Texan’s ear and clipped a lock of his red hair.
For an instant, barely an instant, the Texan’s revolver shook
uncertainly. That instant spelled opportunity for the scout. With
the speed of thought he grabbed the hostile gun, jerked it away, and
looked over the sights at its owner.
“Why don’t you count ‘two?’” inquired the scout pleasantly.
But the Texan had lost the count. Instead of trying to find it, and
go on with it, he began to swear.
“Sit down,” ordered Buffalo Bill. “I’ve caught my breath, all right,
but I want to read you a lesson in common civility, and show you how
to treat a traveler who accidentally drops in on you through the roof
of your dugout.”
Some one laughed. It was not the red-haired man, of course, for he
was in anything but a merry mood. The laughter came from behind the
scout, and was the first intimation that there was any one else in
the place.
The scout could not very well turn from the red-haired man and
investigate.
“Who’s doing that?” he demanded.
“You git right out o’ here!” flamed the red-haired man. “This ain’t
none o’ yore put-in, or----”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” cut in the scout sharply. “Who are you,
behind there?”
“Nate Dunbar,” came the answer.
“If you’re a friend of this red-headed rawhide, Dunbar,” proceeded
the scout, “why don’t you step up behind me and help him put me out?”
“For two reasons,” answered the voice behind. “First off, neighbor,
I’m no friend of Red Steve’s. Then, again, I’m lashed and laid away
on the shelf. If I was able to move, I’d take Red Steve down and
choke the breath out of him.”
“Dunbar’s a hoss thief that I’ve captured,” cried Red Steve, “an’ I
want ye ter go on erbout yore bizness an’ leave us alone.”
“I’m no horse thief,” said Dunbar, “and Red Steve talks crooked. He’s
working for Benner, and Phelps, and the rest of those cattle barons
on the Brazos. It’s tin-horn work, too, and Red has to use the double
tongue.”
“I thought there was something more than just common incivility back
of his treatment of me,” observed the scout, a glitter rising in
the eyes that looked across the revolver sights. “Don’t you try to
talk!” he said sternly to the man in front of him. “Walk around and
take the ropes off Dunbar. When I count ‘one,’ you’ll begin to move;
when I say ‘two,’ you’ll begin on the ropes; and when I finish with
‘three,’ if Dunbar isn’t clear of his bonds, I’ll do something more
than singe your ear and take a lock of your red hair. Chance, it
seems, has bobbled, and dropped me into the right place at just about
the right time. Now, then, one!”
There was that in the scout’s eyes and manner which caused Red Steve
to start promptly toward the other side of the dugout. As he moved,
the scout turned on the stool and let the revolver follow him.