THE BAD MAN.
The night of the opening day of the trial of Red Dick, Buffalo Bill and
several of his pards struck town. With the scout were Hickok, Little
Cayuse, and Skibo, the giant negro. Old Nomad was on the way, and might
be expected to “lite” at any hour.
The scout’s orders were direct from the secretary of the interior at
Washington. The encroachments of the cattlemen and sheepmen upon the
Indian reservations and various clashes with the red men were breeding
discontent, and promised a serious outbreak. Buffalo Bill had been
instructed, also, to quietly look into the conduct of some of the
Indian agents in the Northwest. Complaints were finding their way to
Washington, and the rival political party was making campaign material
out of them.
If the Indians were being cheated and robbed by unprincipled officers,
the department wished to make an example of said officers and preserve
peace and the good will of the Indians.
Intruders were flocking upon the Indian lands in search of gold, and
herds of the white men grazed where no human foot had the right to set,
except that of the red man. The buffaloes, which were the main source
of food supply for the Indians, were slain by thousands. Excursionists
and others shot the animals, and their putrefying carcasses thickly
dotted the plains.
It was coming to the knowledge of officials in Washington that there
was an “Indian ring,” which included a corrupt gang of miscreants
at the national capital in league with others in the West. Through
this band of rascals the Indians were provided with worthless rags
for blankets and wretched meat in place of the supplies called for by
treaty contract and provided by the government.
By the manipulations of unscrupulous agents and land thieves the
cultivated lands of the Indians were being taken from them, and tracts
of deserts substituted.
Buffalo Bill well knew that the whites were trampling on the rights of
the red men, and his sympathies were known among both shades of skin.
Sitting Bull, the famous chief, had always hated the palefaces, and,
nursing the wrongs of his people, he now refused to sign a treaty
giving up certain lands. He had been threatened by bumptious officials,
and on the strength of these threats he had gone among the powerful
Sioux tribes, and exhorted them to prepare for war.
Such men as Generals Sheridan, Canby, Miles, Custer, and others foresaw
serious difficulty with the Indians at a time when the general public
in the East had been lulled into a sense of security in the belief that
the Indian question had been settled for all time.
Buffalo Bill’s mission was to soothe and quiet the Indians, so far as
possible; at the same time he was bringing to justice the leaders in
as corrupt a gang as ever went unhanged. He found the whites not only
robbing the red men, but at war among themselves over grazing rights.
Enforcement of the law was a farce, and right was much a case of might.
Bad men flourished and boasted themselves terrors of the universe.
These wild and woolly fellows seldom met, but exercised their blatant
powers over the more submissive portion of the public.
Buffalo Bill’s arrival had not been heralded, and he was not recognized
at the most pretentious hostelry of the Gallatin Valley. With his pards
he made up a quiet little party, who might have been attracted to town
by the trial. No one seemed interested to the point of curiosity, and
the scout was gratified that it was so. The men he was after might not
so soon take alarm.
It was a typical border aggregation that thronged the tavern that
night, the air filled with tobacco smoke and fumes of liquor and
vibrating with loud talk.
Late in the evening Fighting Dan Grey appeared. He was “liquored up”
and looking for trouble. He was dodged by all who could avoid him, but
led men by twos and threes to the bar to drink his health. He was well
supplied with the yellow metal, and everybody had to drink whom he
invited.
Later Dan’s mood changed, and he wanted to play cards. He roped in one
man, and desired two others. Far back in a corner the scout and the
Laramie man sat smoking and watching the constantly changing aspect of
a night gathering of Westerners going through all stages of acquiring a
state of intoxication.
Fighting Dan espied them, and led his victim thither.
“Hyar are ther ombrays thet I propose ter hev er game er cyards with.”
Dan slammed a table across in front of the scout and Hickok, churned
the partner he had impressed into service into a chair opposite one for
himself, and said:
“Thar! I reckon the’s goin’ to be a game. Hyar, yew long-haired fellar,
ketch holt an’ shake ’em out.”
Buffalo Bill smilingly humored the big, black bad man, whose
counterpart in character he had seen many times. Hickok, too, sat in
good-naturedly, and the quartette proceeded in a friendly game. The
scout and the Laramie man won the first hand, and then Fighting Dan
insisted that all go to the bar and “wash ’er down” at his expense.
The scout and Hickok declined. The bad man was in a towering rage at
once. He smote the table with a bang that attracted the attention of
every man in the room, and then he bellowed:
“So yer refuses to swaller pizen with me, does ye? Waal, Dan Grey won’t
eat that kind o’ dirt fr’m no long-haired ombray this side o’ Tophet.”
Buffalo Bill sat calmly and smilingly, awaiting the subsidence of the
bad man’s spasm.
Hickok held the deck, and idly shuffled the cards over and over. The
other seized the opportunity to escape.
Half a hundred men turned all attention to the corner where sat the
unruffled scout confronted by the roaring, dark-visaged giant.
Little Cayuse had entered, followed by Skibo. They were attracted
to the scene at once. Skibo edged through the crowd until he was at
Buffalo Bill’s back, and said in an undertone:
“’Scuse me, Mars’ Billyum, but don’t you want ole Skibo to squelch ’im?”
“No, no, Skibo; thanks. I guess it will soon blow over.”
But it didn’t blow over, and the bad man worked himself into a perfect
frenzy while raving at the unterrified scout.
“I’ll make a pin wheel o’ you over my head,” he roared, leaning forward
and grasping Buffalo Bill by the shoulders.
When he had done that the man from Laramie suddenly kicked the table
over, and left nothing between the bad man and his intended victim.
Dan attempted to change the hold of one of his huge hands from the
scout’s shoulder to the thigh for his usual spectacular performance,
but he found his own wrist suddenly caught in a viselike grip.
The bad man struggled for the release of his arm, for a moment, and was
manifestly surprised that he could not readily wrench the imprisoned
member from the grasp of any man.
And then, before he realized the possibility of such a happening, the
bad man felt his opponent step in close, and the next instant he was
whirling through the air, to land on a table and crash with it to the
floor.
Fighting Dan got up slowly, and for a moment stared at the scout
in dazed surprise; then he reached for his guns. Before his hands
had fairly touched their butts he found himself peering into the
sinister-looking muzzle of the scout’s rigid revolver.
“Hold on, amigo!” he shouted; “I wa’n’t goin’ ter shoot; I was on’y
goin’ ter take off me weapons an’ git ready ter mop up this hyar
barroom with ye.”
“All right, neighbor; if that is your game I’m agreeable.” And without
a quiver the scout handed his own gun to Hickok and stepped forward.
Dan deliberately laid his big revolvers on a table, spat on his hands,
and then suddenly rushed.
The scout did not expect such a move from the previous deliberate
movements, but he was not caught at a disadvantage. Wheeling like a
flash, he caught the big fellow, half-buttocked him, and stretched
the giant breathless on his back on the floor. The crowd cheered, and
Fighting Dan regained his feet slowly, a sadder and wiser bad man. He
had never suffered such humiliation before.
“Who be yew, amigo?” he asked, extending his hand.
“Friend,” answered Buffalo Bill; “I have never been ashamed of my name,
but for to-night it is not to be made public property. I am steering my
own canoe without instructions, and I don’t drink at any man’s order. I
am willing to go some distance to please, but it is the business of no
man here what my name may be. Good night.”
Buffalo Bill and his pards pushed through the cheering barroom
gathering which had increased to a mob, and made their way to their
rooms on the floor above.
After the scout had left the discomfited Dan relieved his mind as
follows:
“By ther rip-roarin’ Jeehokibus! That there tarnal is a hull cyclone
an’ a few whirlwinds ter boot.”