Buffalo Bill’s Still Hunt
OR,
The Robber of the Range
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, 1907 |
| By STREET & SMITH |
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| Buffalo Bill’s Still Hunt |
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All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
CONTENTS
PAGE
IN APPRECIATION OF WILLIAM F. CODY 1
I. CROSSING THE RIO GRANDE. 5
II. DESERTED. 19
III. SILK LASSO SAM, THE OUTLAW. 24
IV. BONNIE BELLE OF POCKET CITY. 29
V. LIFE AT PIONEER POST. 43
VI. THE LAST APPEAL. 48
VII. THE DOOMED OUTLAW. 62
VIII. A FAIR PLOTTER. 77
IX. A VISITOR AT PIONEER POST. 87
X. THE REALITY OF AN IDEAL. 101
XI. THE DEPARTURE. 115
XII. CAUGHT IN THE ACT. 129
XIII. IN HANGMAN’S GULCH. 144
XIV. TURNING THE TABLES. 163
XV. A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW. 177
XVI. A BORDER BURIAL. 186
XVII. A SISTER OF MERCY. 196
XVIII. RETURN OF THE SCOUTS. 219
XIX. THE TELLING BLOW. 228
XX. THE SURGEON’S MISSION. 238
XXI. ACCUSED. 252
XXII. BUFFALO BILL’S MAD RIDE. 261
XXIII. THE COLONEL RECEIVES A LETTER. 279
XXIV. TREACHERY. 292
XXV. THE SURGEON SCOUT’S WARNING. 304
XXVI. BONNIE BELL’S WORK DONE. 314
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’S STILL HUNT.
CHAPTER I.
CROSSING THE RIO GRANDE.
The Rio Grande, the great dividing-line between Mexico and the United
States, was swelling rapidly into a flood under recent rains, which
had sent torrents dashing from the mountain lands toward the Gulf.
A carriage, drawn by two horses, had halted upon the banks at the
ford, the Mexican driver on the box seeming afraid to venture into
the turbid stream.
Within the vehicle were two persons, one in the garb of a nun of the
Church of Rome, the other a young and beautiful girl of sixteen, with
dark hair and glorious eyes that revealed her Spanish blood.
“Well, Pedro, why do you halt here?” asked the nun of the driver.
“It is dangerous to cross, Sister Felicite,” was the answer.
“And the river is rising?”
“It is, sister.”
“You know the ford, Pedro?”
“Perfectly, sister.”
“How deep will the waters come?”
“They will wash through the carriage, Sister Felicite.”
“Then what is to be done, Pedro?”
“Alas! I know not,” was the dejected reply.
“If you return, the road is dangerous, night is coming on, and there
is no ranch within fifteen miles.”
“Very true, sister.”
“What shall we do, then?” the nun asked anxiously.
“Place greater weights in the carriage, sister; open the doors, to
let the water run through and not wash it away; let me mount the box
with Pedro, to use the whip, while he manages the horses, and we can
get across.”
The speaker was the young girl, and the nun looked at her with an
expression of amazed horror.
“Why, child, what do you mean?”
“Oh, Sister Felicite, I do not mind a ducking or danger, for I have
crossed many a stream beyond its banks.”
“The señorita is right, Sister Felicite, for it is our only chance,”
Pedro said.
“And the river is constantly rising, so that there is no time to
delay,” Nina de Sutro remarked, in a determined manner, her face full
of spirit and courage.
“What do you think, Pedro?” asked the nun.
“It is all that we can do, sister.”
“Then act upon the Señorita Nina’s suggestion at once.”
The driver sprang from his box, and at once began to pack the vehicle
with stones to weight it down.
The baggage was taken from the boot and placed on top, and Sister
Felicite mounted there, also, seated upon the cushions.
Nina climbed to the seat next to the driver’s upon the box; then the
man mounted to his place, seized his reins, and, with a searching
glance across the river, to where the trail left the waters on the
other shore, he urged the horses into the now turbulent and deep
stream.
It was a perilous undertaking, but the nun was silent and calm, the
young girl fearless-faced and determined, the driver, Pedro, seeming
anxious and nervous, understanding the danger more thoroughly,
perhaps with a premonition of what lay in their path.
The carriage at times was swept along for a few feet; the horses time
and again lost their footing but the brave driver knew the ford
well, and Nina de Sutro understood just when to use the whip, for she
carefully watched every movement of Pedro and the horses.
As they neared the other shore one of the horses suddenly sank out of
sight into a hole, and the pull dragged the driver over upon the top
of his now struggling team.
The vehicle swept around suddenly, the driver was beaten down by the
plunging, struggling horses, and was swept away upon the surging
current.
But Nina de Sutro had seized the reins, and, to her great delight,
the vehicle was swept upon a bar, where its downward course was
arrested, and the horses regained their footing once more.
Poor Pedro!
“Alas! we, too, must go to join him soon,” said Sister Felicite, with
calm resignation.
“Yes, sister, the waters are flowing more rapidly, and we will soon
be swept away,” was the response of the young girl, who was still
cool and full of nerve, though her face had blanched at thus being
confronted by what appeared to be sure death.
“Keep up your courage, for I will come to your aid!”
The voice came from the bank, where a horseman had suddenly dashed
down the hill and come to a halt.
“I will see if my lasso will reach you. Catch it, señorita, as I
throw!” cried the horseman, and he launched the coil into the air,
when it was caught by Nina, while the nun on the top of the carriage
muttered a fervent:
“Holy Mother, I thank thee!”
A cheer broke from the lips of the horseman, who was splendidly
mounted and equipped, and dressed in the garb of a Mexican gentleman
ranchero.
The horseman had been riding along the ridge-trail upon the Mexican
side of the river.
He saw the danger, just as the driver was dragged from his seat,
and, wheeling his horse, he dashed down to the bank, to see that the
vehicle was at the mercy of the waters and very soon would be swept
away with its occupants.
At once he had seized the long lariat he had hanging from the horn of
his saddle.
He was a man whose handsome face and courtly manners would win
admiration anywhere. His fine physique was set off by his elegant
Mexican dress, and he wore upon his head a sombrero richly
embroidered in gold and silver, a tiny crossed American and Mexican
flag being upon the brim on the left side.
His hair was very long, falling far down his back, and he wore a
mustache and imperial which gave him a military air.
His horse was richly caparisoned, and it looked ready for any service
its master demanded.
His lasso coil having been most skilfully launched over the waters
and caught by Nina de Sutro, the horseman called out in a voice of
command:
“Tie a firm knot about the dash of the carriage, and I will make fast
my end to this tree.”
The girl obeyed with alacrity, and, dismounting, the man took his
stake-rope, and, throwing aside his hat, jacket, belt of arms, and
boots with heavy spurs, plunged into the stream, and was, with a few
vigorous strokes, carried to the vehicle, which was just balancing
upon the bar of sand, the horses barely keeping their feet.
The stake-ropes of the horses were taken from the boot and tied
securely to the one carried by the rescuer. The new line was then
made fast to the pole, the stranger meanwhile acting rapidly and
coolly, while he said:
“Have no fear now, ladies, for I will swim ashore with this line,
attach it to my saddle, and my horse will drag your carriage ashore.
You, miss, hold the reins, but cling to the carriage top-rail, should
the vehicle capsize, as this lady must also do. Now all is ready, and
there is no time to lose.”
With this he sprang into the stream once more, and was whirled away
by the swiftly flowing current. He swam splendidly, and landed below,
just as he reached the end of the united stake-ropes.
Running up the bank, he made the end fast to his saddle-horn, and,
seizing the lasso tied to the tree, untied it and took position near
his horse--the intelligent animal seeming to understand just what was
expected of him.
“All ready, now!” cried the horseman, to the nun and Nina upon the
box of the carriage. The latter still held the reins and whip.
Then he started his horse slowly forward, thus drawing, with the
stake-ropes attached to the saddle-horn and the lasso which he held,
the horses and vehicle up against the current of the surging stream.
At the call of the stranger, Nina gathered the reins, and at the same
time laid the whip upon the backs of the horses.
They plunged forward and were over their depth at once, while the
carriage sank nearly to the top, the waters dashing through the
doors, which had been opened wide and made fast.
This alone saved the carriage from being upset by the pressure of the
waters.
The noble horse ashore drew hard, and the rescuer also pulled with
all his might, the lasso and stake-ropes, fast to the pole and
dashboard, being taut as a wire.
As the horses and vehicle swept off of the bar they swung toward the
shore, and, after a moment of intense suspense to the nun and Nina,
they beheld the team gain a footing; then the carriage began to rise
from the stream, and a moment after the stranger plunged in, seized
the bits of the animals, and led them a hundred feet up the current
to the ford, where a landing could be made.
A moment more and the panting horses had dragged the vehicle out of
danger, while the stranger cried:
“Saved, and only a foot wet!”
“Yes, sir, you have saved this child’s life and mine, and Heaven will
reward you for it. But, alas! poor Pedro has gone to his doom. May
the blessed Mother have mercy upon his soul!”
“_Amen!_” came the low, but fervent response of the young girl, and
holding out her hand to the stranger, she said in a frank manner
natural to her:
“You have saved Sister Felicite and poor little me from death, for
without your aid we were doomed. Oh, señor, never will I forget you
and the scene of this day!”
The stranger bowed courteously, and replied:
“It was my fortune to be near to aid you. Now let me drive you to the
Mission San José, where I suppose you are to pass the night, for it
is but a mile away.”
“You are most kind, sir; but do not let me lead you from your way,
for I can drive.”
“No, the road is bad and dangerous, and I will see you to safety
before I leave you.”
The baggage was then taken from the top, and placed in the boot
again; the nun entered the carriage, Nina retaining her seat upon
the box, seeming not to hear the good Felicite’s gentle command for
her to sit with her. Springing to his seat, the stranger called to
his horse to follow, and drove off with the skill of an experienced
driver.
The Mission San José was reached in safety, and there the stranger
left them, but Nina de Sutro never forgot that ride, or the face of
the man who had saved her life.
Without a word regarding himself, not even giving his name or
calling, the daring rescuer of two lives had sprung into his saddle,
after reaching the mission, raised his sombrero courteously, and,
dashing spurs into his horse, had gone off like the wind.
“Who is he, Father Ambrose?” asked the nun, addressing the head
priest of the Mission.
“I do not know, Sister Felicite, for I never saw him before; but he
shall have the prayers of the church for his noble deed done this day
for you and this child,” was the response, and the travelers were
made comfortable at the Mission for the night.
The next day another driver was secured, and Sister Felicite and her
fair young charge, who was going to the City of Mexico, to a convent,
to receive her education, went on their way.
But Sister Felicite soon discovered that the peril through which
they had passed had seemed to cast a gloom upon the heart of Nina de
Sutro. The young girl became thoughtful, and no longer gathered wild
flowers when they halted to rest by the wayside.
Arriving at the convent, Nina did not have the same merry nature as
before, and her leisure hours seemed to be passed in reveries.
After some months at the convent, the girl went into the city, to
pass a short vacation with her kindred, and to accompany them to a
grand tournament which was given by army officers and gentlemen fond
of such sports.
There was a bull-fight, then a riding-match for a prize, a
shooting-match, a combat on horseback with swords, and lasso-throwing.
There were champions in each different sport, and one winning a prize
was to hold himself ready to defend it should any one challenge him
to do so at the time that it was presented to him in the arena.
The bull-fight had ended disastrously, for the infuriated animals
had killed several horses and wounded half a dozen of the amateur
fighters, until not another one dared enter the ring, it was
supposed, when, to the surprise of all, a horseman, splendidly
mounted, rode into the arena.
He was masked, and wore the richest of costumes. Who he was no one
knew, and he had merely given his name as the “Cavalier of the Rio
Grande.”
The maddened bull made a rush for him that caused all to hold their
breath with suspense.
Just as all believed the horse would be gored to death, the skilful
rider wheeled him out of harm’s way, spurred him alongside of the
bull, and, leaning from his saddle, drove his sword to the hilt into
the great brute’s side.
The games were then continued, and, just as the victor in the
shooting-match was receiving his prize, in rode the stranger, still
wearing his mask, and challenged him to contest for the trophy he had
won.
The victor gladly consented, but only to surrender, soon after, the
beautiful prize to the unknown Cavalier of the Rio Grande!
And so it was with the one who had gained the prize for riding--a
horse, saddle, and bridle of great value--for the unknown was on hand
to challenge him and win.
In the combat on horseback with swords, the unknown was there to
grasp the prize won by the victor as soon as he went forward to
receive it. Then came the sports with the lasso, and once more it was
the unknown who defeated the champion.
In addition to the prize--a purse of gold, in this case--a silk lasso
was presented, one beautifully woven of crimson hue, and of great
strength, length, and beauty.
The last test of skill was a sword-combat, fought with rapiers, and
it was said that the gallant young officer who won the prize had no
equal in Mexico.
But into the arena rode the unknown, and, dismounting, he threw his
glove down at the feet of the champion. It was promptly picked up by
the victor, who was the commander of a crack command of lancers, and
the two soon advanced to face each other.
Like fiery serpents the steel blades writhed around each other and
flashed in the sunlight, and men, and women, too, had begun to feel
that at last the unknown had more than met his match.
“The unknown was a fool to offer combat to Major Delano, after being
tired out with his other combats,” said a rich banker, a kinsman of
Nina de Sutro.
Through all, the young girl had watched with white face every
contest, her eyes riveted upon the masked face of the unknown; but
she caught the words of her kinsman, and said quickly:
“A hundred pesos, señor, that the unknown defeats Major Delano.”
“Bravo! just hear the child! But I accept your wager, Nina, and----
Holy Heaven, see there!”
A cry of bravo went up from the crowd, for somehow the major was
seen to catch the point of the unknown’s sword, and it pierced his
heart.
How it happened no one seemed to know, and the explanation of the
unknown was accepted, for, instantly unmasking, he faced the judges,
and said in a voice that reached every ear:
“Pardon, señors, but the officer was so confident of disarming me
he pressed forward, slipped, and, not guarding my thrust, my sword
pierced his breast.”
He bowed his head, to await the decision of the judges, while from
the lips of Nina de Sutro fell the words in a quivering voice:
“I felt that it was so. He is my hero of the Rio Grande!”