Buffalo Bill’s Pursuit
OR,
The Heavy Hand of Justice
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 Pursuit |
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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 VOICE FROM THE TREE. 5
II. PIZEN JANE, OF CINNABAR. 13
III. CHASED BY WOLVES. 20
IV. A STARTLING DISCOVERY. 32
V. THE CAPTURE. 39
VI. ABANDONED. 49
VII. TAUNTS AND JEERS. 53
VIII. CLOSING IN. 62
IX. A DEFIANT PRISONER. 67
X. MOTHER AND SON. 72
XI. THE DESERT HOTSPUR. 78
XII. IN THE OUTLAW STRONGHOLD. 84
XIII. PEERLESS AS A SCOUT. 89
XIV. THE LIVING BARRICADE. 96
XV. THE GALLANT TROOPERS. 101
XVI. A WOMAN’S VENGEANCE. 104
XVII. PURSUED BY BLACKFEET. 109
XVIII. THE BLACKFOOT TRAILERS. 118
XIX. THE TRAGEDY OF THE CABIN. 123
XX. AN AMAZING DISAPPEARANCE. 129
XXI. THE PRISONER. 137
XXII. WIND FLOWER. 146
XXIII. THE FLIGHT OF THE FUGITIVES. 154
XXIV. THE SCOUTS’ PURSUIT. 167
XXV. AGAIN A PRISONER. 176
XXVI. THE WILD RANGE RIDERS. 181
XXVII. AGAIN ON THE TRAIL. 189
XXVIII. THE CAPTURE OF THE MEDICINE MAN. 194
XXIX. THE COMING OF THE MEDICINE MAN. 201
XXX. THE DEFEAT OF THE BLACKFEET. 210
XXXI. RINGED IN BY FIRE. 215
XXXII. THE GIRL AND THE EMERALDS. 222
XXXIII. THE EAVESDROPPER. 228
XXXIV. THE MUSTANG CATCHERS. 235
XXXV. THE ATTACK ON THE STAGE. 243
XXXVI. DISAPPOINTED ROAD AGENTS. 251
XXXVII. SETTING A TRAP. 256
XXXVIII. A CAPTURE AND AN ESCAPE. 260
XXXIX. THE EMERALDS GONE. 270
XL. CODY AND NOMAD. 275
XLI. THE OUTLAWS TRICKED. 283
XLII. A ROUGH DIPLOMAT. 288
XLIII. A WHIRLWIND CHASE. 293
XLIV. LAWLESS STRATEGY. 298
XLV. A SNEAKING COWARD. 305
XLVI. THE CAPTURE OF THE THIEF. 311
XLVII. AT BAY--AT PEACE. 316
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 PURSUIT.
CHAPTER I.
THE VOICE FROM THE TREE.
Buffalo Bill drew rein and looked around. He was in a narrow and
lonely trail that ran close by the Cinnabar River.
The country was gullied and cut by small cañons. Several hundred feet
below him the river roared in its narrow, rock-bound bed. On the
sloping side of this cañon was a number of trees, some of them of
large size; and trees of the same kind bordered the trail.
The scout, having drawn rein, sat quite still in his saddle,
listening. All he heard now was the roar of the stream, the soughing
of the wind in the trees, and the restless champing of his spirited
horse.
“Help!”
A sudden cry of distress sounded near him, and once more Buffalo Bill
stared around.
The call seemed to have come out of the sky, or to have floated from
the mist that rose above the tumbling water of the river.
“Can my ears have fooled me?” was his thought.
“Hello!” he called. “What is it?”
A faint mumbling seemed to come in answer to this, but he could not
locate the sound nor distinguish the words.
He rode up and down the trail, looking over into the cañon and along
its timbered slope; he let his eyes wander over the rocky hillsides
opposite the cañon.
“The wind is fooling me!” was his thought. Yet he was not satisfied
to let it go at that; so he dismounted, tied his horse, and swung
down the incline of the cañon for a number of yards, and there
reaching a shelf of rock, he bent over the river and listened. Then
he heard it again--a cry for help.
This time it seemed to be above him, almost over his head; and it
sounded so startlingly clear that he could have fancied that the lips
that made it were at his elbow.
“Yes,” he said, starting up and staring around. “Where are you? I see
no one.”
The call rose louder and clearer, so clear that it was absolutely
startling. Apparently, the one making the cry had, for the first
time, become aware that the call for help had reached human ears.
“Here I am, right here! Help! I’m right here--in this tree!”
Buffalo Bill rose to his feet and stared hard at the tree before him.
It was within six yards of him, higher up toward the level where lay
the trail; and the voice had seemed to come from the heart of it. Yet
he could see no hole in the tree.
It was a large, stubby oak, wide branching and low; its thick boughs
extended along the cañon slope, forming there a massy shade.
“Yes!” he said, jumping toward it. “In the tree? Where?”
The voice seemed now to gurgle, and again the answer was so
indistinct that Buffalo Bill climbed up to the tree, and walked
around it, determined to find an opening, if there was one.
“In the tree?” he asked. “In this tree?”
He kicked on it and hammered on it with his knuckles.
“Yes!” the voice now screamed, seeming to be right before him.
“I’m--fast--in--this--consarned--tree! Help! H-e-l-p! H-e-l-p!”
“Yes!” said the scout again, shouting the word. “How did you get in?
And how can I reach you?”
“I--fell--in! Help! H-e-l-p! H-e-l-p!”
“Fell in? How? When----”
“Fell in at the top, you fool! Help! H-e-l-p! H-e-l-p!”
The voice had a strange, quavering sound, high-keyed and singular.
“Fell in from the top!” The scout looked at the thick top of the
tree. “Well, this must be investigated!”
He began to climb the tree, using his lariat to aid him, looping
it around the tree and around his body, thus assisting himself
materially in making the ascent. He climbed rapidly in this way, and
was soon in the lower branches.
The voice continued to call, sometimes sounding loud and clear, and
then almost falling, or seeming to fall, to shrill whispers.
He fancied these changes were due to the wind that roared through the
top of the tree, carrying the sound first one way and then another.
In a very short time he was in the matted top of the oak, hanging
over the cañon. Then, to his amazement, he saw before him a large
hole, such as a bear might have used. The calls were coming from this
hole.
He looked into it, but the hole was black as pitch, and he could see
nothing. However, the words of the person down in it seemed now to be
shot at him as if from the muzzle of a gun.
“Help! H-e-l-p! H-e-l-p! I’m in the tree; and I----”
“Yes--yes! I’m here to help you. How far down are you? I can’t see
you.”
“Something’s stoppin’ up the hole now; it’s a bear mebbe! Help!
H-e-l-p!”
“I am shutting the light out, I suppose. I want to help you. If I
lower my lariat can you get hold of it? Then perhaps I can pull you
out, or assist you to get out.”
The calls changed in their character; the person in the tree had
become aware that some one was at the opening, and that this some one
was proffering assistance.
“Drap yer rope, then!” the voice shrieked. “I kin climb it, mebbe.”
The scout lowered the noose end of his lariat into the hole.
“Just place the noose under your arms,” he instructed, “and I can
help you out.”
He felt the rope jerked, and then the voice shouted:
“All O. K. down here; now h’ist away. You’re a stranger, but a friend
in need; and a friend in need is wuth a dozen angels any day o’ the
week!”
Buffalo Bill began to haul on the rope, and was instantly aware that
the individual in the tree was ascending. There was much scratching,
sputtering, and fussing, and many singular exclamations; but slowly
the tree prisoner ascended. Then the scout beheld the top of a head,
surmounted by a queer hat, or bonnet; so that, at that first glance,
he thought he had an Indian in the loop of the lariat.
However, when the neck and shoulders, and then the body of the
prisoner appeared, he saw that he had drawn a woman out of the tree.
The fact was amazing, and this woman was as singular a creature as
he had ever seen: being a tall, raw-boned, awkward female, with a
vinegary countenance, and features as homely as if they had been
copied from some comic monthly.
“Hello!” she sputtered, as she clutched the edge of the hole and
began to draw herself out. “This here is what I calls an unfort’nit
condition fer a lady to be in. B’ jings, it is! An’ I reckon I’ve et
a peck o’ dirt and rotten wood, into the barg’in!” She spat pieces of
wood out of her mouth, revealing a row of fanglike teeth. “And I’ve
that mussed up my Sunday clo’es that I won’t be able to go to church
nex’ Sunday!”
At this she cackled in a strange way, as if she had uttered a good
joke.
With the scout’s assistance, she crawled out of the hole and dropped
down in the nest of broad limbs that were matted together in front of
the hole, forming there a sort of shelf of verdure.
“Well, may I be switched if I was ever in sich a reedicklus situation
before!” she grumbled. “I reckon you never before pulled a lady out
o’ the top of a tree?”
The scout was staring at her most ungallantly.
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “I must beg your pardon if I was rough while
hauling on that rope.”
“Oh, I ain’t as light as swan’s-down!” she cackled. “I’m purty hefty;
and heftier still when I git my mad up and git in a fight.”
“But how did you get in such a place?” he was forced to demand.
“I fell in.”
“Fell in?”
“You kin understand words, can’t ye? Yes, I fell in.”
“But----”
“Well, I clim’ up here last night, thinkin’ it’d be a safer place
to spend the night in than down on the ground, with wolves howlin’
’round, and mebbe road agents perambulatin’ along the trail. It
looked like a good sort of a nest up here, and I thought I’d try it
fer safety; fer I cal’lated that if a wild cat, er a panther, got
into the tree, I could git down, mebbe; and I wasn’t as afeard o’
them as I was o’ the wolves I heerd howlin’. And so I clim’ up.
And while mussin’ ’round here on these limbs, tryin’ to make myself
comfortable, I slipped into that hole, hurtin’ my arm some; and then,
fust thing I knowed, I was down in the holler of the tree inside, and
couldn’t git out ag’in.”
She laughed in a mirthless way.
“Well, you better believe that I was scai’t some, when I found I
couldn’t git out. I wiggled and I waggled, but it didn’t do no good;
and there I had to stay.”
She laughed again, with that singular, mirthless cackle.
“Well, I was safe enough from wolves and varmints of that kind; you’d
better believe I was. I didn’t hear a wolf, ner did a single wild cat
er panther try to pay me a visit; but when mornin’ come I couldn’t
git out.
“I reckon I hollered so much that if the breath I wasted doin’ it was
all collected, it’d fill the sails of the British navy. But it didn’t
do a mite o’ good, seemed like, till bime-by I reckon you heerd me.”
“Yes, I heard you. Your yells were enough to wake the dead!”
She glanced down into the hole and shivered.
“Now, if you’ll permit me, I’ll try to help you down to the ground,”
he said.
“Oh, law, I kin make that all right; that don’t trouble me a little
bit!”
To show that it did not, she swung down from the nest of branches,
and then, grappling the tree as if she were a man, she slid down to
the ground. The scout followed her, and soon stood beside her on the
shelving slope.
“Now I’ll help you up to the trail,” he said. “You must be pretty
well exhausted by this time, and----”
“Lawk, I don’t need no help!”
She began to scramble up to the trail.
The scout accompanied her, assisting her as much as she would let
him; and soon they stood together in the trail.