Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
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Buffalo Bill, the Border King
OR, REDSKIN AND COWBOY
BY Col. Prentiss Ingraham
Author of “Buffalo Bill”
[Illustration]
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
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Copyright, 1907 By STREET & SMITH
Buffalo Bill, the Border King
(Printed in the United States of America)
All rights reserved including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
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 role 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 Roughriders 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.
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BUFFALO BILL, THE BORDER KING.
CHAPTER I. RUNNING THE DEATH-GANTLET.
Fort Advance, a structure built of heavy, squared timbers and some
masonry, with towers at the four corners, commanding the deep ditches
which had been dug around the walls, stood in the heart of the then
untracked Territory of Utah. It was the central figure of a beautiful
valley--when in repose--and commanded one of the important passes and
wagon trails of the Rockies.
A mountain torrent flowed through the valley, and a supply of pure
water from this stream had been diverted into the armed square which,
commanded by Major Frank Baldwin, was a veritable City of Refuge to all
the whites who chanced to be in the country at this time.
For the valley of Fort Advance offered no peaceful scene. The savage
denizens of the mountain and plain had risen, and, in a raging,
vengeful flood, had poured into the valley and besieged the unfortunate
occupants of the fort. These were a branch of the great Sioux tribe,
and, under their leading chief, Oak Heart, fought with the desperation
and blind fanaticism of Berserkers.
A belt of red warriors surrounded Fort Advance, cutting off all
escape, or the approach of any assistance to the inmates of the
stockade, outnumbering the able-bodied men under Major Baldwin’s
command five to one! Among them rode the famous Oak Heart, inspiring
his children to greater deeds of daring. By his side rode a graceful,
beautiful girl of some seventeen years, whose face bore the
unmistakable stamp of having other than Indian blood flowing in her
veins. Long, luxurious hair, every strand of golden hue, contrasted
strangely with her bronze complexion, while her eyes were sloe-black,
and brilliant with every changing expression.
This was White Antelope, a daughter of Oak Heart, and she held almost
as much influence in the tribe as the grim old chief himself. Because
of her beauty, indeed, she was almost worshiped as a goddess. At least,
there was not a young buck in all the Utah Sioux who would not have
attempted any deed of daring for the sake of calling the White Antelope
his squaw.
But while the red warriors were so inspired without the walls of the
fortress, within was a much different scene. Major Baldwin’s resources
were at an end. Many of his men were wounded, or ill; food was low; the
wily redskins had cut off their water-supply; and there were but a few
rounds of ammunition remaining. Fort Advance and its people were at a
desperate pass, indeed!
After a conference with his subordinate officers, Major Baldwin stood
up in the midst of his haggard, powder-begrimed men. They were faithful
fellows--many of them bore the scars of old Indian fights. But human
endurance has its limit, and there is an end to man’s courage.
“Will no man in this fort dare run the death-gantlet and bring aid to
us?” cried the major.
It was an appeal from the lips of a fearless man, one who had won a
record as a soldier in the Civil War, and had made it good later upon
the field as an Indian fighter. The demand was for one who would risk
almost certain death to save a couple of hundred of his fellow beings,
among them a score of women and children.
The nearest military post where help might be obtained was forty
miles away. Several brave men had already attempted to run the deadly
gantlet, and had died before the horrified eyes of the fort’s inmates.
It seemed like flinging one’s life away to venture into the open where,
just beyond rifle-shot, the red warriors ringed the fort about.
Such was the situation, and another attack was about due. The riding of
the big chief and his daughter through the mass of Indians, was for the
purpose of giving instructions regarding the coming charge. Ammunition
in the fort might run out this time. Then over the barrier would swarm
the redskins, and the thought of the massacre that would follow made
even Major Baldwin’s cheek blanch.
So the gallant commander’s appeal had been made--and had it been made
in vain? So it would seem, for not a man spoke for several moments.
They shifted their guns, or changed weight from one foot to the other,
or adjusted a bandage which already marked the redskin’s devilish work.
They were brave men; but death seemed too sure a result of the attempt
called for; it meant--to their minds--but another life flung away!
“Was it not better that all should die here together, fighting
desperately till the last man fell?” That was the question these old
scarred veterans asked in their own minds. The venture would be utterly
and completely hopeless.
“_Look there!_”
The trumpet-call was uttered by an officer on one of the towers
of the stockade. His arm pointed westward, toward a ridge of rock
which--barren and forbidding--sloped down into the valley facing the
main gateway of Fort Advance.
At the officer’s cry a score of men leaped to positions from which
could be seen the object that occasioned it. Even Major Baldwin,
knowing that the cry had been uttered because of some momentous
happening, hurriedly mounted to the platform above the gate. He feared
that already his demand for another volunteer was too late. He believed
the redskins were massing for another charge.
All eyes were strained in the direction the officer on the watch-tower
pointed. A gasp of amazement was chorused by those who saw and
understood the meaning of the cry.
A horseman was seen riding like the wind toward the fort--and he was a
white man!
The Indians who had already beheld this rash adventurer were dumb with
amazement. They were as much surprised by his appearance as were the
inmates of the fort.
The unknown rider was leading a packhorse. The horse he bestrode was a
magnificent animal, and the packhorse flying along by its side was a
racer as well, for both came on, down the long tongue of barren rock,
at a spanking pace.
From whence had the man come? Who was he? How had he gotten almost
through the Indian lines undiscovered?
He certainly had all but run the gantlet of the red warriors, for no
shot, or no arrow, had been fired at him until he was discovered by the
officer on the watch-tower of the fort.
Then it was that he spurred forward like the wind, and floating to the
ears of the whites who watched him so fearfully came the long, tremolo
yell of the Sioux warriors as they started in pursuit of the daredevil
rider. He was heading directly for the large gates of the fort.
That he had chosen well his place to break through the Indian
death-circle was evident, for there were few braves near him as he fled
along the sloping ridge into the valley. His rifle he turned to right,
or to left, firing with the same ease from either shoulder, while his
mount, and the packhorse tied to its bridle, guided their own feet over
the rocky way.
When he pulled trigger the bullet did not miss its mark. The rifle rang
out a death-knell, or sent a wounded brave out of action.
The ponies of the Indians were feeding in the valley, with only a guard
here and there, and there were no mounted warriors near to close in on
the reckless rider, or to head him off. Hark! Their vengeful yells, as
they observed the possibility of the daring man’s escape, were awful
to hear. They were in a frenzy of rage at the desperate act of the
horseman.
Rifles and bows sent bullets and shafts at him, but at long range. If
he was hit he did not show it. The horses still thundered on, down into
the valley, as recklessly as frenzied buffalo.
Oak Heart, the great war chief, heard the commotion and saw the
speeding white man. The chief was mounted, and he lashed his horse into
a dead run for the point where the reckless paleface was descending
into the valley. With him rode the White Antelope, and their coming
spurred the braves to more strenuous attempts to reach, or capture, or
kill, the daredevil rider.
The occupants of the fort--those who beheld this wonderful race--were
on the qui vive. Their exclamations displayed the anxiety and
uncertainty they felt.
“He can never make it!”
“The Indian guard are driving in the ponies to bar his way!”
“Who is he?”
“How he rides!”
“God guard the brave fellow!” cried a woman’s voice.
One of the gentler sex had climbed to the platform over the gate, and
this was her prayer.
Other women had dropped to their knees, and were fervently praying God
to spare the splendid fellow who was daring the gantlet of death. A
cheer rose from the soldiery. This unknown was showing them the way
that they had not dared to go.
“That packhorse is wounded. Why doesn’t he leave it?” cried one of the
officers. “It is delaying him--can’t the fellow see it?”
At that moment the commander shouted:
“Captain Keyes, take your troop to the rescue of that brave fellow!”
“With pleasure, sir! I was about to ask your permission to do just
that,” declared the junior officer.
The bugle sounded, but its notes were drowned in a sudden wild shout
of joy that rose from the two hundred inmates of the fort. Another
officer, with a field-glass at his eye, had suddenly turned and shouted:
“It is Buffalo Bill, the Border King!”