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Last of the Great Scouts: The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"]

by Helen Cody Wetmore · English · Gutenberg #1248 · 500,700 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Last of the Great Scouts: The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"]


Author: Helen Cody Wetmore

Release date: February 19, 2006 [eBook #1248]

Language: English



*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS: THE LIFE STORY OF WILLIAM F. CODY ["BUFFALO BILL"] ***



Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger





LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS

The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"]


by Helen Cody Wetmore




LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS

THE LIFE STORY OF COL. WILLIAM F. CODY "BUFFALO BILL"

AS TOLD BY HIS SISTER HELEN CODY WETMORE




TO THE MEMORY OF A MOTHER WHOSE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER STILL LIVES A
HALLOWED INFLUENCE




GENEALOGY OF BUFFALO BILL.

The following genealogical sketch was compiled in 1897. The crest is
copied from John Rooney's "Genealogical History of Irish Families."

It is not generally known that genuine royal blood courses in Colonel
Cody's veins. He is a lineal descendant of Milesius, king of Spain, that
famous monarch whose three sons, Heber, Heremon, and Ir, founded the
first dynasty in Ireland, about the beginning of the Christian era. The
Cody family comes through the line of Heremon. The original name was
Tireach, which signifies "The Rocks." Muiredach Tireach, one of the
first of this line, and son of Fiacha Straivetine, was crowned king of
Ireland, Anno Domini 320. Another of the line became king of Connaught,
Anno Domini 701. The possessions of the Sept were located in the present
counties of Clare, Galway, and Mayo. The names Connaught-Gallway, after
centuries, gradually contracted to Connallway, Connellway, Connelly,
Conly, Cory, Coddy, Coidy, and Cody, and is clearly shown by ancient
indentures still traceable among existing records. On the maternal side,
Colonel Cody can, without difficulty, follow his lineage to the best
blood of England. Several of the Cody family emigrated to America in
1747, settling in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The name is
frequently mentioned in Revolutionary history. Colonel Cody is a member
of the Cody family of Revolutionary fame. Like the other Spanish-Irish
families, the Codys have their proof of ancestry in the form of a crest,
the one which Colonel Cody is entitled to use being printed herewith.
The lion signifies Spanish origin. It is the same figure that forms a
part of the royal coat-of-arms of Spain to this day--Castile and
Leon. The arm and cross denote that the descent is through the line of
Heremon, whose posterity were among the first to follow the cross, as a
symbol of their adherence to the Christian faith.




PREFACE.

In presenting this volume to the public the writer has a twofold
purpose. For a number of years there has been an increasing demand for
an authentic biography of "Buffalo Bill," and in response, many books
of varying value have been submitted; yet no one of them has borne
the hall-mark of veracious history. Naturally, there were incidents in
Colonel Cody's life--more especially in the earlier years--that could be
given only by those with whom he had grown up from childhood. For
many incidents of his later life I am indebted to his own and others'
accounts. I desire to acknowledge obligation to General P. H. Sheridan,
Colonel Inman, Colonel Ingraham, and my brother for valuable assistance
furnished by Sheridan's Memoirs, "The Santa Fe Trail," "The Great Salt
Lake Trail," "Buffalo Bill's Autobiography," and "Stories from the Life
of Buffalo Bill."

A second reason that prompted the writing of my brother's life-story is
purely personal. The sobriquet of "Buffalo Bill" has conveyed to many
people an impression of his personality that is far removed from the
facts. They have pictured in fancy a rough frontier character, without
tenderness and true nobility. But in very truth has the poet sung:

     "The bravest are the tenderest--
     The loving are the daring."

The public knows my brother as boy Indian-slayer, a champion
buffalo-hunter, a brave soldier, a daring scout, an intrepid
frontiersman, and a famous exhibitor. It is only fair to him that a
glimpse be given of the parts he played behind the scenes--devotion to
a widowed mother, that pushed the boy so early upon a stage of ceaseless
action, continued care and tenderness displayed in later years, and the
generous thoughtfulness of manhood's prime.

Thus a part of my pleasant task has been to enable the public to see my
brother through his sister's eyes--eyes that have seen truly if kindly.
If I have been tempted into praise where simple narrative might to the
reader seem all that was required, if I have seemed to exaggerate in any
of my history's details, I may say that I am not conscious of having set
down more than "a plain, unvarnished tale." Embarrassed with riches of
fact, I have had no thought of fiction. H. C. W.

CODYVIEW, DULUTH, MINNESOTA, February 26, 1899.




LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS.



CHAPTER I. -- THE OLD HOMESTEAD IN IOWA.

A PLEASANT, roomy farm-house, set in the sunlight against a background
of cool, green wood and mottled meadow--this is the picture that my
earliest memories frame for me. To this home my parents, Isaac and Mary
Cody, had moved soon after their marriage.

The place was known as the Scott farm, and was situated in Scott County,
Iowa, near the historic little town of Le Clair, where, but a few years
before, a village of the Fox Indians had been located; where Black Hawk
and his thousand warriors had assembled for their last war-dance; where
the marquee of General Scott was erected, and the treaty with the Sacs
and Foxes drawn up; and where, in obedience to the Sac chief's terms,
Antoine Le Clair, the famous half-breed Indian scholar and interpreter,
had built his cabin, and given to the place his name. Here, in this
atmosphere of pioneer struggle and Indian warfare--in the farm-house
in the dancing sunshine, with the background of wood and meadow--my
brother, William Frederick Cody, was born, on the 26th day of February,
1846.

Of the good, old-fashioned sort was our family, numbering five daughters
and two sons--Martha, Samuel, Julia, William, Eliza, Helen, and May.
Samuel, a lad of unusual beauty of face and nature, was killed through
an unhappy accident before he was yet fourteen.

He was riding "Betsy Baker," a mare well known among old settlers
in Iowa as one of speed and pedigree, yet displaying at times a most
malevolent temper, accompanied by Will, who, though only seven years
of age, yet sat his pony with the ease and grace that distinguished the
veteran rider of the future. Presently Betsy Baker became fractious, and
sought to throw her rider. In vain did she rear and plunge; he kept his
saddle. Then, seemingly, she gave up the fight, and Samuel cried, in
boyish exultation:

"Ah, Betsy Baker, you didn't quite come it that time!"

His last words! As if she knew her rider was a careless victor off
his guard, the mare reared suddenly and flung herself upon her back,
crushing the daring boy beneath her.

Though to us younger children our brother Samuel was but a shadowy
memory, in him had centered our parents' fondest hopes and aims. These,
naturally, were transferred to the younger, now the only son, and the
hope that mother, especially, held for him was strangely stimulated by
the remembrance of the mystic divination of a soothsayer in the years
agone. My mother was a woman of too much intelligence and force of
character to nourish an average superstition; but prophecies fulfilled
will temper, though they may not shake, the smiling unbelief of the most
hard-headed skeptic. Mother's moderate skepticism was not proof against
the strange fulfillment of one prophecy, which fell out in this wise:

To a Southern city, which my mother visited when a girl, there came a
celebrated fortune-teller, and led by curiosity, my mother and my aunt
one day made two of the crowd that thronged the sibyl's drawing-rooms.

Both received with laughing incredulity the prophecy that my aunt and
the two children with her would be dead in a fortnight; but the dread
augury was fulfilled to the letter. All three were stricken with
yellow fever, and died within less than the time set. This startling
confirmation of the soothsayer's divining powers not unnaturally
affected my mother's belief in that part of the prophecy relating to
herself that "she would meet her future husband on the steamboat by
which she expected to return home; that she would be married to him in a
year, and bear three sons, of whom only the second would live, but that
the name of this son would be known all over the world, and would one
day be that of the President of the United States." The first part of
this prophecy was verified, and Samuel's death was another link in the
curious chain of circumstances. Was it, then, strange that mother looked
with unusual hope upon her second son?

That 'tis good fortune for a boy to be only brother to five sisters is
open to question. The older girls petted Will; the younger regarded him
as a superior being; while to all it seemed so fit and proper that the
promise of the stars concerning his future should be fulfilled that
never for a moment did we weaken in our belief that great things were
in store for our only brother. We looked for the prophecy's complete
fulfillment, and with childish veneration regarded Will as one destined
to sit in the executive's chair.

My mother, always somewhat delicate, was so affected in health by
the shock of Samuel's death that a change of scene was advised. The
California gold craze was then at its height, and father caught the
fever, though in a mild form; for he had prospered as a farmer, and
we not only had a comfortable home, but were in easy circumstances.
Influenced in part by a desire to improve mother's health, and in
part, no doubt, by the golden day-dreams that lured so many Argonauts
Pacificward, he disposed of his farm, and bade us prepare for a Western
journey. Before his plans were completed he fell in with certain
disappointed gold-seekers returning from the Coast, and impressed by
their representations, decided in favor of Kansas instead of California.

Father had very extravagant ideas regarding vehicles and horses, and
such a passion for equestrian display, that we often found ourselves
with a stable full of thoroughbreds and an empty cupboard. For our
Western migration we had, in addition to three prairie-schooners, a
large family carriage, drawn by a span of fine horses in silver-mounted
harness. This carriage had been made to order in the East, upholstered
in the finest leather, polished and varnished as though for a royal
progress. Mother and we girls found it more comfortable riding than the
springless prairie-schooners.

Brother Will constituted himself an armed escort, and rode proudly
alongside on his pony, his gun slung across the pommel of his saddle,
and the dog Turk bringing up the rear.

To him this Western trip thrilled with possible Indian skirmishes and
other stirring adventures, though of the real dangers that lay in our
path he did not dream. For him, therefore, the first week of our travels
held no great interest, for we were constantly chancing upon settlers
and farm-houses, in which the night might be passed; but with every
mile the settlers grew fewer and farther between; until one day Will
whispered to us, in great glee: "I heard father tell mother that he
expected we should have to camp to-night. Now we'll have some fun!"

Will's hope was well founded. Shortly before nightfall we reached a
stream that demanded a ferry-boat for its crossing, and as the nearest
dwelling was a dozen miles away, it was decided that we should camp by
the stream-side. The family was first sent across the ferry, and upon
the eight-year-old lad of the house father placed the responsibility of
selecting the ground on which to pitch the tents.

My brother's career forcibly illustrates the fact that environment plays
as large a part as heredity in shaping character. Perhaps his love for
the free life of the plains is a heritage derived from some long-gone
ancestor; but there can be no doubt that to the earlier experiences
of which I am writing he owed his ability as a scout. The faculty for
obtaining water, striking trails, and finding desirable camping-grounds
in him seemed almost instinct.

The tents being pitched upon a satisfactory site, Will called to Turk,
the dog, and rifle in hand, set forth in search of game for supper. He
was successful beyond his fondest hopes. He had looked only for small
game, but scarcely had he put the camp behind him when Turk gave a
signaling yelp, and out of the bushes bounded a magnificent deer. Nearly
every hunter will confess to "buck fever" at sight of his first deer, so
it is not strange that a boy of Will's age should have stood immovable,
staring dazedly at the graceful animal until it vanished from sight.
Turk gave chase, but soon trotted back, and barked reproachfully at his
young master. But Will presently had an opportunity to recover Turk's
good opinion, for the dog, after darting away, with another signaling
yelp fetched another fine stag within gun range. This time the young
hunter, mastering his nerves, took aim with steady hand, and brought
down his first deer.

On the following Sabbath we were encamped by another deep, swift-running
stream. After being wearied and overheated by a rabbit chase, Turk
attempted to swim across this little river, but was chilled, and would
have perished had not Will rushed to the rescue. The ferryman saw the
boy struggling with the dog in the water, and started after him with his
boat. But Will reached the bank without assistance.

"I've hearn of dogs saving children, but this is the first time I ever
hearn of a child saving a dog from drowning," ejaculated the ferryman.
"How old be you?"

"Eight, going on nine," answered Will.

"You're a big boy for your age," said the man. "But it's a wonder you
didn't sink with that load; he's a big old fellow," referring to Turk,
who, standing on three feet, was vigorously shaking the water from his
coat. Will at once knelt down beside him, and taking the uplifted foot
in his hands, remarked: "He must have sprained one of his legs when he
fell over that log; he doesn't whine like your common curs when they get
hurt."

"He's blooded stock, then," said the man. "What kind of dog do you call
him?"

"He's an Ulm dog," said Will.

"I never heard tell of that kind of dog before."

"Did you ever hear of a tiger-mastiff, German mastiff, boar-hound, great
Dane? Turk's all of them together."

"Well," said the ferryman, "you're a pretty smart little fellow, and got
lots of grit. You ought to make your mark in the world. But right now
you had better get into some dry clothes." And on the invitation of the
ferryman, Will and the limping dog got into the boat, and were taken
back to camp.

Turk played so conspicuous and important a part in our early lives that
he deserves a brief description. He was a large and powerful animal of
the breed of dogs anciently used in Germany in hunting the wild boars.
Later the dogs were imported into England, where they were particularly
valued by people desiring a strong, brave watch-dog. When specially
trained, they are more fierce and active than the English mastiff.
Naturally they are not as fond of the water as the spaniel, the
stag-hound, or the Newfoundland, though they are the king of dogs on
land. Not alone Will, but the rest of the family, regarded Turk as the
best of his kind, and he well deserved the veneration he inspired. His
fidelity and almost human intelligence were time and again the means of
saving life and property; ever faithful, loyal, and ready to lay down
his life, if need be, in our service.

Outlaws and desperadoes were always to be met with on Western trails in
those rugged days, and more than once Turk's constant vigilance warned
father in time to prevent attacks from suspicious night prowlers. The
attachment which had grown up between Turk and his young master was but
the natural love of boys for their dogs intensified. Will at that time
estimated dogs as in later years he did men, the qualities which
he found to admire in Turk being vigilance, strength, courage, and
constancy. With men, as with dogs, he is not lavishly demonstrative;
rarely pats them on the back. But deeds of merit do not escape his
notice or want his appreciation. The patience, unselfishness, and true
nobility observed in this faithful canine friend of his boyhood days
have many times proved to be lacking in creatures endowed with a soul;
yet he has never lost faith in mankind, or in the ultimate destiny of
his race. This I conceive to be a characteristic of all great men.

This trip was memorable for all of us, perhaps especially so for brother
Will, for it comprehended not only his first deer, but his first negro.

As we drew near the Missouri line we came upon a comfortable farm-house,
at which father made inquiry concerning a lodging for the night. A widow
lived there, and the information that father was brother to Elijah Cody,
of Platte County, Missouri, won us a cordial welcome and the hospitality
of her home.

We were yet in the road, waiting father's report, when our startled
vision and childish imagination took in a seeming apparition, which
glided from the bushes by the wayside.

It proved a full-blooded African, with thick lips, woolly hair, enormous
feet, and scant attire. To all except mother this was a new revelation
of humanity, and we stared in wild-eyed wonder; even Turk was surprised
into silence. At this point father rejoined us, to share in mother's
amusement, and to break the spell for us by pleasantly addressing the
negro, who returned a respectful answer, accompanied by an ample grin.
He was a slave on the widow's plantation.

Reassured by the grin, Will offered his hand, and tasted the joy of
being addressed as "Massa" in the talk that followed. It was with
difficulty that we prevailed upon "Masse" to come to supper.

After a refreshing night's sleep we went on our way, and in a few days
reached my uncle's home. A rest was welcome, as the journey had been
long and toilsome, despite the fact that it had been enlivened by many
interesting incidents, and was thoroughly enjoyed by all of the family.



CHAPTER II. -- WILL'S FIRST INDIAN.

MY uncle's home was in Weston, Platte County, Missouri, at that time the
large city of the West. As father desired to get settled again as soon
as possible, he left us at Weston, and crossed the Missouri River on
a prospecting tour, accompanied by Will and a guide. More than one day
went by in the quest for a desirable location, and one morning
Will, wearied in the reconnoissance, was left asleep at the night's
camping-place, while father and the guide rode away for the day's
exploring.

When Will opened his eyes they fell upon the most interesting object
that the world just then could offer him--an Indian!

The "noble red man," as he has been poetically termed by people who have
but known him from afar, was in the act of mounting Will's horse, while
near by stood his own, a miserable, scrawny beast.

Will's boyish dreams were now a reality; he looked upon his first
Indian. Here, too, was a "buck"--not a graceful, vanishing deer, but
a dirty redskin, who seemingly was in some hurry to be gone. Without a
trace of "buck fever," Will jumped up, rifle in hand, and demanded:

"Here, what are you doing with my horse?"

The Indian regarded the lad with contemptuous composure.

"Me swap horses with paleface boy," said he.

The red man was fully armed, and Will did not know whether his father
and the guide were within call or not; but to suffer the Indian to
ride away with Uncle Elijah's fine horse was to forfeit his father's
confidence and shake his mother's and sisters' belief in the family
hero; so he put a bold face upon the matter, and remarked carelessly, as
if discussing a genuine transaction:

"No; I won't swap."

"Paleface boy fool!" returned the Indian, serenely.

Now this was scarcely the main point at issue, so Will contented himself
with replying, quietly but firmly:

"You cannot take my horse."

The Indian condescended to temporize. "Paleface horse no good," said he.

"Good enough for me," replied Will, smiling despite the gravity of the
situation. The Indian shone rather as a liar than a judge of horseflesh.
"Good enough for me; so you can take your old rack of bones and go."

Much to Will's surprise, the red man dropped the rein, flung himself
upon his own pony, and made off. And down fell "Lo the poor Indian" from
the exalted niche that he had filled in Will's esteem, for while it was
bad in a copper hero to steal horses, it was worse to flee from a boy
not yet in his teens. But a few moments later Lo went back to his lofty
pedestal, for Will heard the guide's voice, and realized that it was the
sight of a man, and not the threats of a boy, that had sent the Indian
about his business--if he had any.

The guide had returned to escort Will to the spot which father, after
a search of nearly a week, had discovered, and where he had decided
to locate our home. It was in Salt Creek Valley, a fertile blue-grass
region, sheltered by an amphitheater range of hills. The old Salt Lake
trail traversed this valley. There were at this time two great highways
of Western travel, the Santa Fe and the Salt Lake trails; later the
Oregon trail came into prominence. Of these the oldest and most historic
was the Santa Fe trail, the route followed by explorers three hundred
years ago. It had been used by Indian tribes from time, to white men,
immemorial. At the beginning of this century it was first used as an
artery of commerce. Over it Zebulon Pike made his well-known Western
trip, and from it radiated his explorations. The trail lay some distance
south of Leavenworth. It ran westward, dipping slightly to the south
until the Arkansas River was reached; then, following the course of this
stream to Bent's Fort, it crossed the river and turned sharply to the
south. It went through Raton Pass, and below Las Vegas it turned west to
Santa Fe.

Exploration along the line of the Salt Lake trail began also with this
century. It became a beaten highway at the time of the Mormon exodus
from Nauvoo to their present place of abode. The trail crossed the
Missouri River at Leavenworth, and ran northerly to the Platte, touching
that stream at Fort Kearny. With a few variations it paralleled the
Platte to its junction with the Sweetwater, and left this river valley
to run through South Pass to big Sandy Creek, turning south to follow
this little stream. At Fort Bridger it turned westward again, passed
Echo Canon, and a few miles farther on ran into Salt Lake City. Over
this trail journeyed thousands of gold-hunters toward California,
hopeful and high-spirited on the westerly way, disappointed and
depressed, the large majority of them, on the back track.
Freighting outfits, cattle trains, emigrants--nearly all the western
travel--followed this track across the new land. A man named Rively,
with the gift of grasping the advantage of location, had obtained
permission to establish a trading-post on this trail three miles beyond
the Missouri, and as proximity to this depot of supplies was a manifest
convenience, father's selection of a claim only two miles distant was a
wise one.

The Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which provided for the organizing of those
two territories and opened them for settlement, was passed in May. 1854.
This bill directly opposed the Missouri Compromise, which restricted
slavery to all territory south of 36'0 30" north latitude. A clause in
the new bill provided that the settlers should decide for themselves
whether the new territories were to be free or slave states. Already
hundreds of settlers were camped upon the banks of the Missouri, waiting
the passage of the bill before entering and acquiring possession of
the land. Across the curtain of the night ran a broad ribbon of dancing
camp-fires, stretching for miles along the bank of the river.

None too soon had father fixed upon his claim. The act allowing settlers
to enter was passed in less than a week afterward. Besides the pioneers
intending actual settlement, a great rush was made into the territories
by members of both political parties. These became the gladiators, with
Kansas the arena, for a bitter, bloody contest between those desiring
and those opposing the extension of slave territory.

Having already decided upon his location, father was among the first,
after the bill was passed, to file a claim and procure the necessary
papers, and shortly afterward he had a transient abiding-place prepared
for us. Whatever mother may have thought of the one-roomed cabin, whose
chinks let in the sun by day and the moon and stars by night, and whose
carpet was nature's greenest velvet, life in it was a perennial picnic
for the children. Meantime father was at work on our permanent home,
and before the summer fled we were domiciled in a large double-log
house--rough and primitive, but solid and comfort-breeding.

This same autumn held an episode so deeply graven in my memory that time
has not blurred a dine of it. Jane, our faithful maid of all work, who
went with us to our Western home, had little time to play the governess.
Household duties claimed her every waking hour, as mother was delicate,
and the family a large one; so Turk officiated as both guardian and
playmate of the children.

One golden September day Eliza and I set out after wild flowers,
accompanied by Turk and mother's caution not to stray too far, as wild
beasts, 'twas said, lurked in the neighboring forest; but the prettiest
flowers were always just beyond, and we wandered afield until we reached
a fringe of timber half a mile from the house, where we tarried under
the trees. Meantime mother grew alarmed, and Will was dispatched after
the absent tots.

Turk, as we recalled, had sought to put a check upon our wanderings, and
when we entered the woods his restlessness increased. Suddenly he began
to paw up the carpet of dry leaves, and a few moments later the shrill
scream of a panther echoed through the forest aisles.

Eliza was barely six years old, and I was not yet four. We clung to
each other in voiceless terror. Then from afar came a familiar
whistle--Will's call to his dog. That heartened us, babes as we were,
for was not our brother our reliance in every emergency? Rescue was
at hand; but Turk continued tearing up the leaves, after signaling his
master with a loud bark. Then, pulling at our dresses, he indicated the
refuge he had dug for us. Here we lay down, and the dog covered us with
the leaves, dragging to the heap, as a further screen, a large dead
branch. Then, with the heart of a lion, he put himself on guard.

From our leafy covert we could see the panther's tawny form come gliding
through the brush. He saw Turk, and crouched for a spring. This came as
an arrow, but Turk dodged it; and then, with a scream such as I never
heard from dog before or since, our defender hurled himself upon the
foe.

Turk was powerful, and his courage was flawless, but he was no match for
the panther. In a few moments the faithful dog lay stunned and bleeding
from one stroke of the forest-rover's steel-shod paw. The cruel beast
had scented other prey, and dismissing Turk, he paced to and fro,
seeking to locate us. We scarcely dared to breathe, and every throb of
our frightened little hearts was a prayer that Will would come to us in
time.

At last the panther's roving eyes rested upon our inadequate
hiding-place, and as he crouched for the deadly leap we hid our faces.

But Turk had arisen. Wounded as he was, he yet made one last heroic
effort to save us by again directing the panther's attention to himself.

The helpless, hopeless ordeal of agony was broken by a rifle's sharp
report. The panther fell, shot through the heart, and out from the
screen of leaves rushed two hysterical little girls, with pallid faces
drowned in tears, who clung about a brother's neck and were shielded in
his arms.

Will, himself but a child, caressed and soothed us in a most paternal
fashion; and when the stone of sobs was passed we turned to Turk.
Happily his injuries were not fatal, and he whined feebly when his
master reached him.

"Bravo! Good dog!" cried Will. "You saved them, Turk! You saved them!"
And kneeling beside our faithful friend, he put his arms about the
shaggy neck.

Dear old Turk! If there be a land beyond the sky for such as thou, may
the snuggest corner and best of bones be thy reward!



CHAPTER III. -- THE SHADOW OF PARTISAN STRIFE.

OWING to the conditions, already spoken of, under which Kansas was
settled, all classes were represented in its population. Honest,
thrifty farmers and well-to-do traders leavened a lump of shiftless
ne'er-do-wells, lawless adventurers, and vagabonds of all sorts and
conditions. If father at times questioned the wisdom of coming to this
new and untried land, he kept his own counsel, and set a brave face
against the future.

He had been prominent in political circles in Iowa, and had filled
positions of public trust; but he had no wish to become involved in the
partisan strife that raged in Kansas. He was a Free Soil man, and there
were but two others in that section who did not believe in slavery. For
a year he kept his political views to himself; but it became rumored
about that he was an able public speaker, and the pro-slavery men
naturally ascribed to him the same opinions as those held by his brother
Elijah, a pronounced pro-slavery man; so they regarded father as a
promising leader in their cause. He had avoided the issue, and had
skillfully contrived to escape declaring for one side or the other, but
on the scroll of his destiny it was written that he should be one of the
first victims offered on the sacrificial altar of the struggle for human
liberty.

The post-trader's was a popular rendezvous for all the settlers round.
It was a day in the summer of '55 that father visited the store,
accompanied, as usual, by Will and Turk. Among the crowd, which was
noisy and excited, he noted a number of desperadoes in the pro-slavery
faction, and noted, too, that Uncle Elijah and our two Free Soil
neighbors, Mr. Hathaway and Mr. Lawrence, were present.

Father's appearance was greeted by a clamor for a speech. To speak
before that audience was to take his life in his hands; yet in spite of
his excuses he was forced to the chair.

It was written! There was no escape! Father walked steadily to the
dry-goods box which served as a rostrum. As he passed Mr. Hathaway,
the good old man plucked him by the sleeve and begged him to serve out
platitudes to the crowd, and to screen his real sentiments.

But father was not a man that dealt in platitudes.

"Friends," said he, quietly, as he faced his audience and drew himself
to his full height,--"friends, you are mistaken in your man. I am sorry
to disappoint you. I have no wish to quarrel with you. But you
have forced me to speak, and I can do no less than declare my real
convictions. I am, and always have been, opposed to slavery. It is
an institution that not only degrades the slave, but brutalizes
the slave-holder, and I pledge you my word that I shall use my best
endeavors--yes, that I shall lay down my life, if need be--to keep this
curse from finding lodgment upon Kansas soil. It is enough that the
fairest portions of our land are already infected with this blight.
May it spread no farther. All my energy and my ability shall swell the
effort to bring in Kansas as a Free Soil state."

Up to this point the crowd had been so dumfounded by his temerity that
they kept an astonished silence. Now the storm broke. The rumble of
angry voices swelled into a roar of fury. An angry mob surrounded the
speaker. Several desperadoes leaped forward with deadly intent, and one,
Charles Dunn by name, drove his knife to the hilt into the body of the
brave man who dared thus openly to avow his principles.

As father fell, Will sprang to him, and turning to the murderous
assailant, cried out in boyhood's fury:

"You have killed my father! When I'm a man I'll kill you!"

The crowd slunk away, believing father dead. The deed appalled them;
they were not yet hardened to the lawlessness that was so soon to put
the state to blush.

Mr. Hathaway and Will then carried father to a hiding-place in the long
grass by the wayside. The crowd dispersed so slowly that dusk came on
before the coast was clear. At length, supported by Will, father dragged
his way homeward, marking his tortured progress with a trail of blood.

This path was afterward referred to in the early history of Kansas as
"The Cody Bloody Trail."

It was such wild scenes as these that left their impress on the youth
and fashioned the Cody of later years--cool in emergency, fertile in
resource, swift in decision, dashing and intrepid when the time for
action came.

Our troubles were but begun. Father's convalescence was long and
tedious; he never recovered fully. His enemies believed him dead, and
for a while we kept the secret guarded; but as soon as he was able to be
about persecution began.

About a month after the tragedy at Rively's, Will ran in one evening
with the warning that a band of horsemen were approaching. Suspecting
trouble, mother put some of her own clothes about father, gave him a
pail, and bade him hide in the cornfield. He walked boldly from the
house, and sheltered by the gathering dusk, succeeded in passing the
horsemen unchallenged. The latter rode up to the house and dismounted.

"Where's Cody?" asked the leader. He was informed that father was not at
home.

"Lucky for him!" was the frankly brutal rejoinder. "We'll make sure work
of the killing next time."

Disappointed in their main intention, the marauders revenged themselves
in their own peculiar way by looting the house of every article that
took their fancy; then they sat down with the announced purpose of
waiting the return of their prospective victim.

Fearing the effect of the night air upon father, though it was yet
summer, mother made a sign to Will, who slipped from the room, and
guided by Turk, carried blankets to the cornfield, returning before his
absence had been remarked. The ruffians soon tired of waiting, and rode
away, after warning mother of the brave deed they purposed to perform.
Father came in for the night, returning to his covert with the dawn.

In expectation of some such raid, we had secreted a good stock of
provisions; but as soon as the day was up Will was dispatched to
Rively's store to reconnoiter, under pretext of buying groceries.
Keeping eyes and ears open, he learned that father's enemies were on the
watch for him; so the cornfield must remain his screen. After several
days, the exposure and anxiety told on his strength. He decided to leave
home and go to Fort Leavenworth, four miles distant. When night fell
he returned to the house, packed a few needed articles, and bade us
farewell. Will urged that he ride Prince, but he regarded his journey
as safer afoot. It was a sad parting. None of us knew whether we should
ever again see our father.

"I hope," he said to mother, "that these clouds will soon pass away,
and that we may have a happy home once more." Then, placing his hands on
Will's head, "You will have to be the man of the house until my return,"
he said. "But I know I can trust my boy to watch over his mother and
sisters."

With such responsibilities placed upon his shoulders, such confidence
reposed in him, small wonder that Will should grow a man in thought and
feeling before he grew to be one in years.

Father reached Fort Leavenworth in safety, but the quarrel between the
pro-slavery party and the Free Soilers waxed more bitter, and he decided
that security lay farther on; so he took passage on an up-river boat to
Doniphan, twenty miles distant. This was then a mere landing-place, but
he found a small band of men in camp cooking supper. They were part of
Colonel Jim Lane's command, some three hundred strong, on their way West
from Indiana.

Colonel Lane was an interesting character. He had been a friend to
Elijah Lovejoy, who was killed, in 1836, for maintaining an anti-slavery
newspaper in Illinois. The Kansas contest speedily developed the
fact that the actual settlers sent from the North by the emigrant-aid
societies would enable the Free State party to outnumber the ruffians
sent in by the Southerners; and when the pro-slavery men were driven to
substituting bullets for ballots, Colonel Lane recruited a band of hardy
men to protect the anti-slavery settlers, and incidentally to avenge the
murder of Lovejoy.

The meeting of father and Lane's men was a meeting of friends, and he
chose to cast his lot with theirs. Shortly afterward he took part
in "The Battle of Hickory Point," in which the pro-slavery men were
defeated with heavy loss; and thenceforward the name of Jim Lane was a
terror to the lawless and a wall of protection to our family.

The storm and stress of battle had drawn heavily on what little strength
was left to father, and relying for safety upon the proximity of Colonel
Lane and his men, he returned to us secretly by night, and was at once
prostrated on a bed of sickness.

This proved a serious strain upon our delicate mother, for during
father's absence a little brother had been added to our home, and not
only had she, in addition to the care of Baby Charlie, the nursing of
a sick man, but she was constantly harassed by apprehensions for his
safety as well.



CHAPTER IV. -- PERSECUTION CONTINUES.

MOTHER'S fears were well grounded. A few days after father had returned
home, a man named Sharpe, who disgraced the small office of justice of
the peace, rode up to our house, very much the worse for liquor, and
informed mother that his errand was to "search the house for that
abolition husband of yours." The intoxicated ruffian then demanded
something to eat. While mother, with a show of hospitality, was
preparing supper for him, the amiable Mr. Sharpe killed time in
sharpening his bowie-knife on the sole of his shoe.

"That," said he to Will, who stood watching him, "that's to cut the
heart out of that Free State father of yours!" And he tested the edge
with brutally suggestive care.

Will's comment was to take down his rifle and place himself on the
staircase leading up to father's room. There was trouble in that quarter
for Mr. Sharpe, if he attempted to ascend those stairs.

But the justice, as mother surmised, had no notion that father was at
home, else he would not have come alone. He ate heartily of the supper,
which Will hoped would choke him, and passing from drowsiness to drunken
slumber, soon tumbled from his chair. This so confused him that he
forgot his pretended errand, and shambled out of the house. He was
not so drunk that he could not tell a good bit of horseflesh, and he
straightway took a fancy to Prince, the pet pony of the family. An
unwritten plank in the platform of the pro-slavery men was that the Free
Soil party had no rights they were bound to respect, and Sharpe remarked
to Will, with a malicious grin:

"That's a nice pony of yours, sonny. Guess I'll take him along with me."
And he proceeded to exchange the saddle from the back of his own horse
to that of Prince.

"You old coward!" muttered Will, bursting with wrath. "I'll get even
with you some day."

The justice was a tall, burly fellow, and he cut so ridiculous a figure
as he rode away on Prince's back, his heels almost touching the ground,
that Will laughed outright as he thought of a plan to save his pony.

A shrill whistle brought Turk to the scene, and receiving his cue, the
dog proceeded to give Sharpe a very bad five minutes. He would nip at
one of the dangling legs, spring back out of reach of the whip with a
triumphant bark, then repeat the performance with the other leg. This
little comedy had a delighted spectator in Will, who had followed at a
safe distance. Just as Sharpe made one extra effort to reach Turk, the
boy whistled a signal to Prince, who responded with a bound that dumped
his rider in the dust. Here Turk stood over him and showed his teeth.

"Call off your dog, bub!" the justice shouted to Will, "and you may keep
your little sheep, for he's no good, anyway."

"That's a bargain!" cried Will, restored to good humor; and helping the
vanquished foe upon his own steed, he assured him that he need not fear
Turk so long as he kept his word. Sharpe departed, but we were far from
being rid of him.

About a fortnight later we were enjoying an evening with father, who was
now able to come downstairs. He was seated in a big arm-chair before the
open fire, with his family gathered round him, by his side our frail,
beautiful mother, with Baby Charlie on her knee, Martha and Julia, with
their sewing, and Will, back of mother's chair, tenderly smoothing the
hair from her brow, while he related spiritedly some new escapade of
Turk. Suddenly he checked his narrative, listened for a space, and
announced:

"There are some men riding on the road toward the house. We'd better be
ready for trouble."

Mother, equal to every emergency, hurriedly disposed her slender forces
for defense. Martha and Julia were directed to help father to bed; that
done, to repair to the unfurnished front room above stairs; Will was
instructed to call the hired man and Jane, who was almost as large and
quite as strong as the average man; and the three were armed and given
their cue. They were all handy with their weapons, but mother sought to
win by strategy, if possible. She bade the older girls don heavy boots,
and gave them further instructions. By this time the horsemen had
reached the gate. Their leader was the redoubtable Justice Sharpe. He
rode up to the door, and rapped with the but of his riding-whip. Mother
threw up the window overhead.

"Who's there? and what do you want?" she demanded.

"We want that old abolition husband of yours, and, dead or alive, we
mean to have him!"

"All right, Mr. Sharpe," was the steady answer. "I'll ask Colonel Lane
and his men to wait on you."

The hired man, who had served in the Mexican War, here gave a sharp word
of command, which was responded to by trampling of heavy boots upon the
bare floor. Then, calling a halt, the pretended Colonel Lane advanced to
the window, and shouted to the horsemen:

"Set foot inside that gate and my men will fire on you!"

Sharpe, an arrant coward, had retreated at the first sound of a man's
voice, and after a short parley with his nonplused companions, he led
them away--outwitted by a woman.

As a sort of consolation prize, Sharpe again made off with Prince; but
Will's sorrow in the morning was short-lived, for the sagacious little
creature slipped his halter and came flying home before the forenoon was
half spent.

After this experience, father decided that, for our sakes as well as for
his own, he must again leave home, and as soon as he recovered a measure
of his strength he went to Grasshopper Falls, thirty-five miles west
of Leavenworth. Here he erected a sawmill, and hoped that he had put
so many miles between him and his enemies that he might be allowed to
pursue a peaceful occupation. He made us occasional visits, so timing
his journey that he reached home after nightfall, and left again before
the sun was up.

One day when we were looking forward to one of these visits, our good
friend Mr. Hathaway made his appearance about eleven o'clock.

"It is too bad to be the bearer of ill tidings," said he, "but the news
of your husband's expected visit has been noised about in some way, and
another plot to kill him is afoot. Some of his enemies are camped at Big
Stranger's Creek, and intend to shoot him as he passes there."

Then followed a long and anxious consultation, which ended without any
plan of rescue.

All of which had been overheard by Will, who was confined to his bed
with an attack of ague. In him, he decided, lay the only hope for
father's safety; so, dressing, he presented his fever-flushed face to
mother. As he held out a handkerchief, "Tie it tight around my head,
mother," said he; "then it won't ache so hard."

A remonstrance against his getting out of bed brought out the fact that
he contemplated riding to Grasshopper Falls!

He was almost too weak to stand, a storm threatened, and thirty miles
lay between him and father; yet he was not to be dissuaded from
his undertaking. So Julia and Martha saddled Prince and helped the
ague-racked courier to his saddle.

The plunge into the open air and the excitement of the start encouraged
Will to believe that he could hold out. As he settled down to his long,
hard ride he reflected that it was not yet noon, and that father
would not set out until late in the day. Prince seemed to discern that
something extraordinary was afoot, and swung along at a swift, steady
gait.

Big Stranger's Creek cut the road half-way to the Falls, and Will
approached it before the afternoon was half gone. The lowering sky
darkened the highway, and he hoped to pass the ambush unrecognized; but
as he came up to the stream he made out a camp and campers, one of whom
called out carelessly to him as he passed:

"Are you all right on the goose?"--the cant phrase of the pro-slavery
men.

"Never rode a goose in my life, gentlemen," was the reply.

"That's Cody's boy!" shouted another voice; and the word "Halt!" rang
out just as Will had galloped safely past the camp.

Will's answer was to drive the spurs into Prince and dart ahead,
followed by a rain of bullets. He was now well out of range, and the
pony still strong and fleet.

The chase was on, and in the thrill of it Will forgot his weakness. A
new strength came with the rush of air and the ring of hoofs, and "I'll
reach the Falls in time!" was his heartening thought, as pursurer and
pursued sped through the forests, clattered over bridges, and galloped
up hill and down.

Then broke the long-impending storm, and the hard road became the bed
of a muddy stream. The pursuit was abandoned, and this stimulus removed,
Will felt the chills and weakness coming on again. He was drenched to
the skin, and it was an effort to keep his saddle, but he set his teeth
firmly in his resolve to accomplish his heroic purpose.

At last! A welcome light gleamed between the crystal bars of the rain.
His mission was accomplished.

His ride had been longer by ten miles than that famous gallop of the
friend of his after years--Phil Sheridan. Like Sheridan, he reached the
goal in time, for father was just mounting his horse.

But the ride proved too much for his strength, and Will collapsed.
Father started with him, a few days later, for Topeka, which was
headquarters for the Free State party.

Father acquainted mother of their safety, and explained that he had gone
to Topeka because he feared his life was no longer safe at Grasshopper
Falls.

Party strife in Kansas was now at its height. Thousands came into the
territory from adjacent slave states simply to vote, and the pro-slavery
party elected a legislature, whose first meeting was held at Le Compton.
This election the Free Soilers declared illegal, because of fraudulent
voting, and assembling at Topeka in the winter of 1855-56, they framed
a constitution excluding slavery, and organized a rival government. Of
this first Free-Soil Legislature father was a member.

Thenceforth war was the order of the day, and in the fall of 1856 a
military governor was appointed, with full authority to maintain law and
order in Kansas.

Recognizing the good work effected by the emigrant-aid societies, and
realizing that in a still larger Northern emigration to Kansas lay the
only hope of its admission as a free state, father went to Ohio in the
following spring, to labor for the salvation of the territory he had
chosen for his home. Here his natural gift of oratory had free play, and
as the result of his work on the stump he brought back to Kansas sixty
families, the most of whom settled in the vicinity of Grasshopper Falls,
now Valley Falls.

This meant busy times for us, for with that magnificent disregard for
practical matters that characterizes many men of otherwise great gifts,
father had invited each separate family to make headquarters at his
home until other arrangements could be perfected. As a result, our house
overflowed, while the land about us was dotted with tents; but these
melted away, as one by one the families selected claims and put up
cabins.

Among the other settlers was Judge Delahay, who, with his family,
located at Leavenworth, and began the publishing of the first abolition
newspaper in Kansas. The appointing of the military governor was the
means of restoring comparative tranquillity; but hundreds of outrages
were committed, and the judge and his newspaper came in for a share of
suffering. The printing-office was broken into, and the type and press
thrown into the Missouri River. Undaunted, the judge procured a new
press, and the paper continued.

A semi-quiet now reigned in the territory; father resumed work at the
sawmill, and we looked forward to a peaceful home and the joy of being
once more permanently united. But it was not to be. The knife wound had
injured father's lung. With care and nursing it might have healed, but
constant suffering attended on the life that persecution had led him,
and in the spring of '57 he again came home, and took to his bed for the
last time.

All that could be was done, but nothing availed. After a very short
illness he passed away--one of the first martyrs in the cause of freedom
in Kansas.

The land of his adoption became his last, long resting-place. His
remains now lie on Pilot Knob, which overlooks the beautiful city of
Leavenworth. His death was regretted even by his enemies, who could not
help but grant a tribute of respect to a man who had been upright, just,
and generous to friend and foe.



CHAPTER V. -- THE "BOY EXTRA."

AT this sorrowful period mother was herself almost at death's door with
consumption, but far from sinking under the blow, she faced the new
conditions with a steadfast calm, realizing that should she, too, be
taken, her children would be left without a protector, and at the mercy
of the enemies whose malignity had brought their father to an untimely
end. Her indomitable will opposed her bodily weakness. "I will not die,"
she told herself, "until the welfare of my children is assured." She was
needed, for our persecution continued.

Hardly was the funeral over when a trumped-up claim for a thousand
dollars, for lumber and supplies, was entered against our estate. Mother
knew the claim was fictitious, as all the bills had been settled, but
the business had been transacted through the agency of Uncle Elijah, and
father had neglected to secure the receipts. In those bitter, troublous
days it too often happened that brother turned against brother, and
Elijah retained his fealty to his party at the expense of his dead
brother's family.

This fresh affliction but added fuel to the flame of mother's energy.
Our home was paid for, but father's business had been made so broken
and irregular that our financial resources were of the slenderest, and
should this unjust claim for a thousand dollars be allowed, we would be
homeless.

The result of mother's study of the situation was, "If I had the ready
money, I should fight the claim."

"You fight the claim, and I'll get the money," Will replied.

Mother smiled, but Will continued:

"Russell, Majors & Waddell will give me work. Jim Willis says I am
capable of filling the position of 'extra.' If you'll go with me and ask
Mr. Majors for a job, I'm sure he'll give me one."

Russell, Majors & Waddell were overland freighters and contractors,
with headquarters at Leavenworth. To Will's suggestion mother entered
a demurrer, but finally yielded before his insistence. Mr. Majors had
known father, and was more than willing to aid us, but Will's youth was
an objection not lightly overridden.

"What can a boy of your age do?" he asked, kindly.

"I can ride, shoot, and herd cattle," said Will; "but I'd rather be an
'extra' on one of your trains.'

"But that is a man's work, and is dangerous besides." Mr. Majors
hesitated. "But I'll let you try it one trip, and if you do a man's
work, I'll give you a man's pay."

So Will's name was put on the company roll, and he signed a pledge that
illustrates better than a description the character and disposition of
Mr. Majors.

"I, William F. Cody," it read, "do hereby solemnly swear, before the
great and living God, that during my engagement with, and while I am
in the employ of, Russell, Majors & Waddell, I will, under no
circumstances, use profane language, that I will not quarrel or fight
with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will
conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my
acts as to win the confidence of my employers. So help me God!"

Mr Majors employed many wild and reckless men, but the language of the
pledge penetrated to the better nature of them all. They endeavored,
with varying success, to live up to its conditions, although most of
them held that driving a bull-team constituted extenuating circumstances
for an occasional expletive.

The pledge lightened mother's heart; she knew that Will would keep
his word; she felt, too, that a man that required such a pledge of his
employees was worthy of their confidence and esteem.

The train was to start in a day, and all of us were busy with the
preparations for Will's two months' trip. The moment of parting came,
and it was a trying ordeal for mother, so recently bereaved of husband.
Will sought to soothe her, but the younger sisters had better success,
for with tears in our eyes we crowded about him, imploring him to "run
if he saw any Indians."

'Tis but a step from tears to smiles; the situation was relieved, and
Will launched his life bark amid adieus of hope and confidence and love.
His fortitude lasted only till he was out of sight of the house; but
youth is elastic, the plains lay before him, and mother and sisters were
to be helped; so he presented a cheerful face to his employers.

That night the bed of the "boy extra" was a blanket under a wagon; but
he slept soundly, and was ready when the train started with the dawn.

The "bull-train" took its name from the fact that each of the
thirty-five wagons making up a full train was hauled by several yoke of
oxen, driven by one man, known as a bullwhacker. This functionary's
whip cracked like a rifle, and could be heard about as far. The wagons
resembled the ordinary prairie-schooner, but were larger and more
strongly built; they were protected from the weather by a double
covering of heavy canvas, and had a freight capacity of seven thousand
pounds.

Besides the bullwhackers there were cavallard drivers (who cared for
the loose cattle), night herders, and sundry extra hands, all under the
charge of a chief wagon-master, termed the wagon-boss, his lieutenants
being the boss of the cattle train and the assistant wagon-master. The
men were disposed in messes, each providing its own wood and water,
doing its own cooking, and washing up its own tin dinner service, while
one man in each division stood guard. Special duties were assigned to
the "extras," and Will's was to ride up and down the train delivering
orders. This suited his fancy to a dot, for the oxen were snail-gaited,
and to plod at their heels was dull work. Kipling tells us it is quite
impossible to "hustle the East"; it were as easy, as Will discovered, to
hustle a bull-train.

From the outset the "boy extra" was a favorite with the men. They liked
his pluck in undertaking such work, and when it was seen that he took
pride in executing orders promptly, he became a favorite with the bosses
as well. In part his work was play to him; he welcomed an order as a
break in the monotony of the daily march, and hailed the opportunity of
a gallop on a good horse.

The world of Will's fancy was bounded by the hazy rim where plain and
sky converge, and when the first day's journey was done, and he had
staked out and cared for his horse, he watched with fascinated eyes
the strange and striking picture limned against the black hills and the
sweeping stretch of darkening prairie. Everything was animation; the
bullwhackers unhitching and disposing of their teams, the herders
staking out the cattle, and--not the least interesting--the mess cooks
preparing the evening meal at the crackling camp-fires, with the huge,
canvas-covered wagons encircling them like ghostly sentinels; the ponies
and oxen blinking stupidly as the flames stampeded the shadows in
which they were enveloped; and more weird than all, the buckskin-clad
bullwhackers, squatted around the fire, their beards glowing red in its
light, their faces drawn in strange black and yellow lines, while the
spiked grasses shot tall and sword-like over them.

It was wonderful--that first night of the "boy extra."

But Will discovered that life on the plains is not all a supper
under the stars when the sparks fly upward; it has its hardships and
privations. There were days, as the wagons dragged their slow lengths
along, when the clouds obscured the sky and the wind whistled dismally;
days when torrents fell and swelled the streams that must be crossed,
and when the mud lay ankle-deep; days when the cattle stampeded, and the
round-up meant long, extra hours of heavy work; and, hardest but most
needed work of all, the eternal vigil 'gainst an Indian attack.

Will did not share the anxiety of his companions. To him a brush with
Indians would prove that boyhood's dreams sometimes come true, and
in imagination he anticipated the glory of a first encounter with the
"noble red man," after the fashion of the heroes in the hair-lifting
Western tales he had read. He was soon to learn, as many another has
learned, that the Indian of real Life is vastly different from the
Indian of fiction. He refuses to "bite the dust" at sight of a paleface,
and a dozen of them have been known to hold their own against as many
white men.

Some twenty miles west of Fort Kearny a halt was made for dinner at the
bank of a creek that emptied into the Platte River. No signs of
Indians had been observed, and there was no thought of special danger.
Nevertheless, three men were constantly on guard. Many of the trainmen
were asleep under the wagons while waiting dinner, and Will was watching
the maneuvers of the cook in his mess. Suddenly a score of shots rang
out from the direction of a neighboring thicket, succeeded by a chorus
of savage yells.

Will saw the three men on the lookout drop in their tracks, and saw the
Indians divide, one wing stampeding the cattle, the other charging down
upon the camp.

The trainmen were old frontiersmen, and although taken wholly by
surprise, they lined up swiftly in battle array behind the wagons, with
the bosses, Bill and Frank McCarthy, at their head, and the "boy extra"
under the direction of the wagon-master.

A well-placed volley of rifle-balls checked the Indians, and they
wheeled and rode away, after sending in a scattering cloud of arrows,
which wounded several of the trainmen. The decision of a hasty council
of war was, that a defensive stand would be useless, as the Indians
outnumbered the whites ten to one, and red reinforcements were
constantly coming up, until it seemed to Will as if the prairie were
alive with them. The only hope of safety lay in the shelter of the
creek's high bank, so a run was made for it. The Indians charged again,
with the usual accompaniment of whoops, yells, and flying arrows;
but the trainmen had reached the creek, and from behind its natural
breastwork maintained a rifle fire that drove the foe back out of range.

To follow the creek and river to Fort Kearny was not accounted much of a
chance for escape, but it was the only avenue that lay open; so, with a
parting volley to deceive the besiegers into thinking that the fort was
still held, the perilous and difficult journey was begun.

The Indians quickly penetrated the ruse, and another charge had to be
repulsed. Besides the tiresome work of wading, there were wounded men
to help along, and a ceaseless watch to keep against another rush of the
reds. It was a trying ordeal for a man, doubly so for a boy like Will;
but he was encouraged to coolness and endurance by a few words from
Frank McCarthy, who remarked, admiringly, "Well, Billy, you didn't scare
worth a cent."

After a few miles of wading the little party issued out upon the Platte
River. By this time the wounded men were so exhausted that a halt was
called to improvise a raft. On this the sufferers were placed, and three
or four men detailed to shove it before them. In consideration of his
youth, Will was urged to get upon the raft, but he declined, saying that
he was not wounded, and that if the stream got too deep for him to wade,
he could swim. This was more than some of the men could do, and they,
too, had to be assisted over the deep places.

Thus wore the long and weary hours away, and though the men, who knew
how hard a trip it was, often asked, "How goes it, Billy?" he uttered no
word of complaint.

But half a day's wading, without rest or food, gradually weighted his
heels, and little by little he lagged behind his companions. The moon
came out and silvered tree and river, but the silent, plodding band had
no eyes for the glory of the landscape.

Will had fallen behind some twenty rods, but in a moment fatigue was
forgotten, the blood jumped in his veins, for just ahead of him the
moonlight fell upon the feathered head-dress of an Indian chief, who was
peering over the bank. Motionless, he watched the head, shoulders, and
body of the brave come into view. The Indian supposed the entire party
ahead, and Will made no move until the savage bent his bow.

Then he realized, with a thumping heart, that death must come to one of
his comrades or the Indian.

Even in direst necessity it is a fearful thing to deliberately take a
human life, but Will had no time for hesitation. There was a shot, and
the Indian rolled down the bank into the river.

His expiring yell was answered by others. The reds were not far away.
Frank McCarthy, missing Will, stationed guards, and ran back to look for
him. He found the lad hauling the dead warrior ashore, and seizing his
hand, cried out: "Well done, my boy; you've killed your first Indian,
and done it like a man!"

Will wanted to stop and bury the body, but being assured that it was
not only an uncustomary courtesy, but in this case quite impossible, he
hastened on. As they came up with the waiting group McCarthy called out:

"Pards, little Billy has killed his first redskin!"

The announcement was greeted with cheers, which grated on Will's ears,
for his heart was sick, and the cheers seemed strangely out of place.

Little time, however, was afforded for sentiment of any sort. Enraged
at the death of their scout, the Indians made a final charge, which was
repulsed, like the others, and after this Bill McCarthy took the lead,
with Frank at the rear, to prevent further straggling of the forces.

It was a haggard-faced band that came up to Fort Kearny with the dawn.
The wounded men were left at the post, while the others returned to the
wrecked bull-train under escort of a body of troops. They hoped to make
some salvage, but the cattle had either been driven away or had joined
one of the numerous herds of buffalo; the wagons and their freight had
been burned, and there was nothing to do but bury the three pickets,
whose scalped and mutilated bodies were stretched where they had fallen.

Then the troops and trainmen parted company, the former to undertake
a bootless quest for the red marauders, the latter to return to
Leavenworth, their occupation gone. The government held itself
responsible for the depredations of its wards, and the loss of the
wagons and cattle was assumed at Washington.



CHAPTER VI. -- FAMILY DEFENDER AND HOUSEHOLD TEASE.

THE fame to which Byron woke one historic morning was no more unexpected
to him than that which now greeted Will. The trainmen had not been
over-modest in their accounts of his pluck; and when a newspaper
reporter lent the magic of his imagination to the plain narrative, it
became quite a story, headed in display type, "The Boy Indian Slayer."

But Will was speedily concerned with other than his own affairs, for as
soon as his position with the freighters was assured, mother engaged a
lawyer to fight the claim against our estate. This legal light was
John C. Douglass, then unknown, unhonored, and unsung, but talented and
enterprising notwithstanding. He had just settled in Leavenworth, and he
could scarcely have found a better case with which to storm the heights
of fame--the dead father, the sick mother, the helpless children, and
relentless persecution, in one scale; in the other, an eleven-year-old
boy doing a man's work to earn the money needed to combat the family's
enemies. Douglass put his whole strength into the case.

He knew as well as we that our cause was weak; it hung by a single
thread--a missing witness, Mr. Barnhart. This man had acted as
bookkeeper when the bills were paid, but he had been sent away, and
the prosecution--or persecution--had thus far succeeded in keeping his
where-abouts a secret. To every place where he was likely to be Lawyer
Douglass had written; but we were as much in the dark as ever when the
morning for the trial of the suit arrived.

The case had excited much interest, and the court-room was crowded, many
persons having been drawn thither by a curiosity to look upon "The Boy
Indian Slayer." There was a cheerful unanimity of opinion upon the utter
hopelessness of the Cody side of the case. Not only were prominent and
wealthy men arrayed against us, but our young and inexperienced lawyer
faced the heaviest legal guns of the Leavenworth bar. Our only witnesses
were a frail woman and a girl of eighteen, though by their side, with
his head held high, was the family protector, our brave young brother.
Against us were might and malignity; upon our side, right and the high
courage with which Christianity steels the soul of a believer. Mother
had faith that the invisible forces of the universe were fighting for
our cause.

She and Martha swore to the fact that all the bills had been settled;
and after the opposition had rested its case, Lawyer Douglass arose for
the defense. His was a magnificent plea for the rights of the widow and
the orphan, and was conceded to be one of the finest speeches ever
heard in a Kansas court-room; but though all were moved by our counsel's
eloquence--some unto tears by the pathos of it--though the justice
of our cause was freely admitted throughout the court-room, our best
friends feared the verdict.

But the climax was as stunning to our enemies as it was unexpected. As
Lawyer Douglass finished his last ringing period, the missing
witness, Mr. Barnhart, hurried into the court-room. He had started
for Leavenworth upon the first intimation that his presence there was
needed, and had reached it just in time. He took the stand, swore to
his certain knowledge that the bills in question had been paid, and the
jury, without leaving their seats, returned a verdict for the defense.

Then rose cheer upon cheer, as our friends crowded about us and offered
their congratulations. Our home was saved, and Lawyer Douglass had won a
reputation for eloquence and sterling worth that stood undimmed through
all his long and prosperous career.

The next ripple on the current of our lives was sister Martha's wedding
day. Possessed of remarkable beauty, she had become a belle, and as
young ladies were scarce in Kansas at that time, she was the toast of
all our country round. But her choice had fallen on a man unworthy of
her. Of his antecedents we knew nothing; of his present life little
more, save that he was fair in appearance and seemingly prosperous. In
the sanction of the union Will stood aloof. Joined to a native intuition
were the sharpened faculties of a lad that lived beyond his years.
Almost unerring in his insight, he disliked the object of our sister's
choice so thoroughly that he refused to be a witness of the nuptials.
This dislike we attributed to jealousy, as brother and sister worshiped
each other, but the sequel proved a sad corroboration of his views.

Nature seemed to join her protest to Will's silent antagonism. A
terrific thunder-storm came up with the noon hour of the wedding.
So deep and sullen were the clouds that we were obliged to light the
candles. When the wedding pair took their places before Hymen's altar, a
crash of thunder rocked the house and set the casements rattling.

The couple had their home awaiting them in Leavenworth, and departed
almost immediately after the ceremony.

The cares and responsibilities laid upon our brother's shoulders did not
quench his boyish spirits and love of fun. Not Buffalo Bill's! He gave
us a jack-o'-lantern scare once upon a time, which I don't believe any
of us will ever forget. We had never seen that weird species of pumpkin,
and Will embroidered a blood-and-thunder narrative.

"The pumpkins all rise up out of the ground," said he, "on fire, with
the devil's eyes, and their mouths open, like blood-red lions, and grab
you, and go under the earth. You better look out!"

"That ain't so!" all of us little girls cried; "you know it's a fib.
Ain't it, mother?" and we ran as usual to mother.

"Will, you mustn't tell the children such tales. Of course they're just
fibs," said mother.

"So there!" we cried, in triumph. But Will had a "so there" answer for
us a few nights later. We were coming home late one evening, and found
the gate guarded by mad-looking yellow things, all afire, and grinning
hideously like real live men in the moon dropped down from the sky.

"Jack-o'-lanterns!" screamed Eliza, grabbing May by the hand, and
starting to run. I began to say my prayers, of course, and cry for
mother. All at once the heads moved! Even Turk's tail shot between his
legs, and he howled in fright. We saw the devil's eyes, the blood-red
lion's mouths, and all the rest, and set up such a chorus of wild yells
that the whole household rushed to our rescue. While we were panting out
our story, we heard Will snickering behind the door.

"So there, smarties! You'll believe what I tell you next time. You
bet--ter--had!"

But he liked best to invade our play-room and "work magic" on our
dolls. Mother had set aside one apartment in our large log house for
a play-room, and here each one of our doll families dwelt in peace and
harmony, when Will wasn't around. But there was tragedy whenever he
came near. He would scalp the mother dolls, and tie their babies to the
bedposts, and would storm into their pasteboard-box houses at night,
after we had fixed them all in order, and put the families to standing
on their heads. He was a dreadful tease. It was in this play-room that
the germ of his Wild West took life. He formed us into a regular little
company--Turk and the baby, too--and would start us in marching order
for the woods. He made us stick horses and wooden tomahawks, spears, and
horsehair strings, so that we could be cowboys, Indians, bullwhackers,
and cavalrymen. All the scenes of his first freighting trip were
acted out in the woods of Salt Creek Valley. We had stages, robbers,
"hold-ups," and most ferocious Indian battles.

Will was always the "principal scalper," however, and we had few of our
feathers left after he was on the warpath. We were so little we couldn't
reach his feathers. He always wore two long shiny ones, which had been
the special pride of our black rooster, and when he threw a piece of an
old blanket gotten from the Leavenworth barracks around his shoulders,
we considered him a very fine general indeed.

All of us were obedient to the letter on "show days," and scarcely ever
said "Now, stop," or "I'll tell mother on you!" But during one of these
exciting performances Will came to a short stop.

"I believe I'll run a show when I get to be a man," said he.

"That fortune lady said you'd got to be President of the United States,"
said Eliza.

"How could ze presiman won a show?" asked May.

"How could that old fortune-teller know what I'm going to be?" Will
would answer, disdainfully. "I rather guess I can have a show, in spite
of all the fortune-tellers in the country. I'll tell you right now,
girls, I don't propose to be President, but I do mean to have a show!"

Such temerity in disputing one's destiny was appalling; and though our
ideas of destiny were rather vague, we could grasp one dreadful fact:
Will had refused to be President of the United States! So we ran crying
to mother, and burying our faces in her lap, sobbed out: "Oh, mother!
Will says he ain't going to be President. Don't he have to be?"

Still, in spite of Will's fine scorn of fortune-tellers, the prophecy
concerning his future must have been sometimes in his mind. This was
shown in an episode that the writer is in duty bound, as a veracious
chronicler, to set down.

Our neighbor, Mr. Hathaway, had a son, Eugene, of about Will's age, and
the two were fast friends. One day, when Will was visiting at Eugene's
house, the boys introduced themselves to a barrel of hard cider.
Temperance sentiment had not progressed far enough to bring hard cider
under the ban, and Mr. Hathaway had lately pressed out a quantity of the
old-fashioned beverage. The boys, supposing it a harmless drink, took
all they desired--much more than they could carry. They were in a
deplorable condition when Mr. Hathaway found them; and much distressed,
the good old man put Eugene to bed and brought Will home.

The family hero returned to us with a flourish of trumpets. He stood up
in the wagon and sang and shouted; and when Mr. Hathaway reproved him,
"Don't talk to me," was his lofty rejoinder. "You forget that I am to be
President of the United States."

There is compensation for everything. Will never touched cider again;
and never again could he lord it over his still admiring but no longer
docile sisters. If he undertook to boss or tease us more than to our
fancy, we would subdue him with an imitation of his grandiloquent,
"You forget that I am to be President of the United States." Indeed, so
severe was this retaliation that we seldom saw him the rest of the day.

But he got even with us when "preacher day" came around.

Like "Little Breeches" father, Will never did go in much on religion,
and when the ministers assembled for "quarterly meeting" at our house,
we never knew what to expect from him. Mother was a Methodist, and as
our log house was larger than the others in the valley, it fell to our
lot to entertain the preachers often. We kept our preparations on the
quiet when Will was home, but he always managed to find out what was
up, and then trouble began. His first move was to "sick" Turk on the
yellow-legged chickens. They were our best ones, and the only thing we
had for the ministers to eat. Then Will would come stalking in:

"Say, mother, just saw all the yellow-legged chickens a-scooting up
the road. Methodist preachers must be in the wind, for the old hens are
flying like sixty!"

"Now, Will, you call Turk off, and round up those chickens right away."

"Catch meself!" And Will would dance around and tease so he nearly drove
us all distracted. It was with the greatest difficulty that mother could
finally prevail upon him to round up the chickens. That done, he would
tie up the pump-handle, milk the cows dry, strew the path to the gate
with burrs and thistles, and stick up a sign, "Thorney is the path and
stickery the way that leedith unto the kingdom of heaven. Amen!"

Then when mother had put a nice clean valance, freshly starched and
ruffled, around the big four-poster bed in the sitting-room, Will would
daub it up with smearcase, and just before the preachers arrived, sneak
in under it, and wait for prayers.

Mother always desired us to file in quietly, but we couldn't pass the
bed without our legs being pinched; so we "hollered," but were afraid to
tell mother the reason before the ministers. We had to bear it, but we
snickered ourselves when the man Will called "Elder Green Persimmon,"
because when he prayed his mouth went inside out, came mincing into
the room, and as he passed the valance and got a pinch, jerked out a
sour-grape sneeze:

"Mercy on us! I thought I was bitten by that fierce dog of yours, Mrs.
Cody; but it must have been a burr."

Then the "experiences" would begin. Will always listened quietly,
until the folks began telling how wicked they had been before they got
religion; then he would burst in with a vigorous "Amen!"

The elders did not know Will's voice; so they would get warmed up by
degree as the amens came thicker and faster. When he had worked them
all up to a red-hot pitch, Will would start that awful snort of his
that always made us double up with giggles, and with a loud
cockle-doodle-doo! would bolt from the bed like a lightning flash and
make for the window.

So "preacher day," as Will always called it, became the torment of our
lives.

To tell the truth, Will always was teasing us, but if he crooked his
finger at us we would bawl. We bawled and squalled from morning till
night. Yet we fairly worshiped him, and cried harder when he went away
than when he was home.



CHAPTER VII. -- INDIAN ENCOUNTER AND SCHOOL-DAY INCIDENTS.

WILL was not long at home. The Mormons, who were settled in Utah,
rebelled when the government, objecting to the quality of justice meted
out by Brigham Young, sent a federal judge to the territory. Troops,
under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston, were dispatched
to quell the insurrection, and Russell, Majors & Waddell contracted to
transport stores and beef cattle to the army massing against the Mormons
in the fall of 1857. The train was a large one, better prepared against
such an attack as routed the McCarthy brothers earlier in the summer;
yet its fate was the same.

Will was assigned to duty as "extra" under Lew Simpson, an experienced
wagon-master, and was subject to his orders only. There was the double
danger of Mormons and Indians, so the pay was good. Forty dollars a
month in gold looked like a large sum to an eleven-year-old.

Will's second departure was quite as tragic as the first. We girls,
as before, were loud in our wailings, and offered to forgive him the
depredations in the doll-house and all his teasings, if only he would
not go away and be scalped by the Indians. Mother said little, but
her anxious look, as she recalled the perils of the former trip, spoke
volumes. He carried with him the memory of the open-mouthed admiration
of little Charlie, to whom "Brother Will" was the greatest hero in the
world. Turk's grief at the parting was not a whit less than ours, and
the faithful old fellow seemed to realize that in Will's absence the
duty of the family protector devolved on him; so he made no attempt to
follow Will beyond the gate.

The train made good progress, and more than half the journey to Fort
Bridger was accomplished without a setback. When the Rockies were
reached, a noon halt was made near Green River, and here the men were
surrounded and overcome by a large force of Danites, the "Avenging
Angels" of the Mormon Church, who had "stolen the livery of the court of
heaven to serve the devil in." These were responsible for the atrocious
Mountain Meadow Massacre, in June of this same year, though the wily
"Saints" had planned to place the odium of an unprovoked murder of
innocent women and children upon the Indians, who had enough to answer
for, and in this instance were but the tools of the Mormon Church.
Brigham Young repudiated his accomplice, and allowed John D. Lee to
become the scapegoat. The dying statement of this man is as pathetic as
Cardinal Wolsey's arraignment of Henry VIII.

"A victim must be had," said he, "and I am that victim. For thirty years
I studied to make Brigham Young's will my law. See now what I have come
to this day. I have been sacrificed in a cowardly, dastardly manner. I
do not fear death. I cannot go to a worse place than I am now in."

John D. Lee deserved his fate, but Brigham Young was none the less a
coward.

The Danites spared the lives of the trainmen, but they made sad havoc
of the supplies. These they knew to be intended for the use of the army
opposed to Brigham Young. They carried off all the stores they could
handle, drove with them or stampeded the cattle, and burned the wagons.
The trainmen were permitted to retain one wagon and team, with just
enough supplies to last them to army headquarters.

It was a disheartened, discomfited band that reached Fort Bridger. The
information that two other trains had been destroyed added to their
discouragement, for that meant that they, in common with the other
trainmen and the soldiers at the fort, must subsist on short rations for
the winter. There were nearly four hundred of these trainmen, and it was
so late in the season that they had no choice but to remain where they
were until spring opened.

It was an irksome winter. The men at the fort hauled their firewood two
miles; as the provisions dwindled, one by one the oxen were slaughtered,
and when this food supply was exhausted, starvation reared its gaunt
form. Happily the freighters got word of the situation, and a relief
team reached the fort before the spring was fairly opened.

As soon as practicable the return journey was undertaken. At Fort
Laramie two large trains were put in charge of Lew Simpson, as brigade
wagon-master, and Will was installed as courier between the two
caravans, which traveled twenty miles apart--plenty of elbow room for
camping and foraging.

One morning, Simpson, George Woods, and Will, who were in the rear
train, set out for the forward one, mounted upon mules, and armed, as
the trainmen always were, with rifle, knife, and a brace of revolvers.
About half of the twenty miles had been told off when the trio saw a
band of Indians emerge from a clump of trees half a mile away and sweep
toward them. Flight with the mules was useless; resistance promised
hardly more success, as the Indians numbered a full half-hundred: but
surrender was death and mutilation.

"Shoot the mules, boys!" ordered Simpson, and five minutes later two men
and a boy looked grimly over a still palpitating barricade.

The defense was simple; rifles at range, revolvers for close quarters,
knives at the last. The chief, easily distinguished by his feathered
head-dress, was assigned to Will. Already his close shooting was the
pride of the frontiersmen. Simpson's coolness steadied the lad, who
realized that the situation was desperate.

The Indians came on with the rush and scream of the March wind. "Fire!"
said Simpson, and three ponies galloped riderless as the smoke curled
from three rifle barrels.

Dismayed by the fall of their chief, the redskins wheeled and rode out
of range. Will gave a sigh of relief.

"Load up again, Billy!" smiled Simpson. "They'll soon be back."

"They've only three or four rifles," said Woods. There had been little
lead in the cloud of arrows.

"Here they come!" warned Simpson, and the trio ran their rifles out over
the dead mules.

Three more riderless ponies; but the Indians kept on, supposing they
had drawn the total fire of the whites. A revolver fusillade undeceived
them, and the charging column wavered and broke for cover.

Simpson patted Will on the shoulder as they reloaded. "You're a game
one, Billy!" said he.

"You bet he is," echoed Woods, coolly drawing an arrow from his
shoulder. "How is that, Lew--poisoned?"

Will waited breathless for the decision, and his relief was as great as
Woods's when Simpson, after a critical scrutiny, answered "No."

The wound was hastily dressed, and the little company gave an undivided
attention to the foe, who were circling around their quarry, hanging to
the off sides of their ponies and firing under them. With a touch of
the grim humor that plain life breeds, Will declared that the mules were
veritable pincushions, so full of arrows were they stuck.

The besieged maintained a return fire, dropping pony after pony, and
occasionally a rider. This proved expensive sport to the Indians, and
the whole party finally withdrew from range.

There was a long breathing spell, which the trio improved by
strengthening their defense, digging up the dirt with their knives
and piling it upon the mules. It was tedious work, but preferable to
inactivity and cramped quarters.

Two hours went by, and the plan of the enemy was disclosed. A light
breeze arose, and the Indians fired the prairie. Luckily the grass
near the trail was short, and though the heat was intense and the smoke
stifling, the barricade held off the flame. Simpson had kept a close
watch, and presently gave the order to fire. A volley went through
the smoke and blaze, and the yell that followed proved that it was
not wasted. This last ruse failing, the Indians settled down to their
favorite game--waiting.

A thin line of them circled out of range; ponies were picketed and tents
pitched; night fell, and the stars shot out.

As Woods was wounded, he was excused from guard duty, Will and Simpson
keeping watch in turn. Will took the first vigil, and, tired though he
was, experienced no difficulty in keeping awake, but he went soundly to
sleep the moment he was relieved. He was wakened by a dream that Turk
was barking to him, and vaguely alarmed, he sat up to find Simpson
sleeping across his rifle.

The midnight hush was unbroken, and the darkness lay thick upon the
plain, but shapes blacker than night hovered near, and Will laid his
hand on Simpson's shoulder.

The latter was instantly alive, and Woods was wakened. A faint click
went away on the night breeze, and a moment later three jets of flame
carried warning to the up-creeping foe that the whites were both alive
and on the alert.

There was no more sleep within the barricade. The dawn grew into day,
and anxious eyes scanned the trail for reinforcements--coming surely,
but on what heavy and slow-turning wheels!

Noon came and passed. The anxious eyes questioned one another. Had the
rear train been overcome by a larger band of savages? But suddenly
half a dozen of the Indians were seen to spring up with gestures of
excitement, and spread the alarm around the circle.

"They hear the cracking of the bull-whips," said Simpson.

The Indians who had seen the first team pass, and had assumed that
Simpson and his companions were straggling members of it, did not
expect another train so soon. There was "mounting in hot haste," and the
Indians rode away in one bunch for the distant foothills, just as the
first ox-team broke into view.

And never was there fairer picture to more appreciative eyes than those
same lumbering, clumsy animals, and never sweeter music than the harsh
staccato of the bullwhips.

When hunger was appeased, and Woods's wound properly dressed, Will, for
the second time, found himself a hero among the plainsmen. His nerve and
coolness were dwelt upon by Simpson, and to the dream that waked him in
season was ascribed the continued life on earth of the little company.
Will, however, was disposed to allow Turk the full credit for the
service.

The remainder of the trip was devoid of special incident, and as Will
neared home he hurried on in advance of the train. His heart beat high
as he thought of the dear faces awaiting him, unconscious that he was so
near.

But the home toward which he was hastening with beating heart and winged
heels was shadowed by a great grief. Sister Martha's married life,
though brief, had amply justified her brother's estimate of the man into
whose hands she had given her life. She was taken suddenly ill, and it
was not until several months later that Will learned that the cause of
her sickness was the knowledge that had come to her of the faithless
nature of her husband. The revelation was made through the visit of one
of Mr. C----'s creditors, who, angered at a refusal to liquidate a debt,
accused Mr. C----of being a bigamist, and threatened to set the law upon
him. The blow was fatal to one of Martha's pure and affectionate
nature, already crushed by neglect and cruelty. All that night she
was delirious, and her one thought was "Willie," and the danger he was
in--not alone the physical danger, but the moral and spiritual peril
that she feared lay in association with rough and reckless men. She
moaned and tossed, and uttered incoherent cries; but as the morning
broke the storm went down, and the anxious watchers fancied that she
slept. Suddenly she sat up, the light of reason again shining in her
eyes, and with a joyous cry, "Tell mother Willie's saved! Willie's
saved!" she fell back on her pillow, and her spirit passed away. On her
face was the peace that the world can neither give nor take away. The
veil of the Unknown had been drawn aside for a space. She had "sent her
soul through the Invisible," and it had found the light that lit the
last weary steps through the Valley of the Shadow.

Mr. C---- had moved from Leavenworth to Johnson County, twenty-five
miles away, and as there were neither telegraph nor mail facilities,
he had the body sent home, himself accompanying it. Thus our first
knowledge of Martha's sickness came when her lifeless clay was borne
across our threshold, the threshold that, less than a year before, she
had crossed a bright and bonny bride. Dazed by the shock, we longed
for Will's return before we must lay his idolized sister forever in her
narrow cell.

All of the family, Mr. C---- included, were gathered in the
sitting-room, sad and silent, when Turk suddenly raised his head,
listened a second, and bounded out of doors.

"Will is coming!" cried mother, and we all ran to the door. Turk was
racing up the long hill, at the top of which was a moving speck that the
dog knew to be his master. His keen ears had caught the familiar whistle
half a mile away.

When Turk had manifested his joy at the meeting, he prepared Will for
the bereavement that awaited him; he put his head down and emitted a
long and repeated wail. Will's first thought was for mother, and he
fairly ran down the hill. The girls met him some distance from the
house, and sobbed out the sad news.

And when he had listened, the lad that had passed unflinching through
two Indian fights, broke down, and sobbed with the rest of us.

"Did that rascal, C----, have anything to do with her death?" he asked,
when the first passion of grief was over.

Julia, who knew no better at the time, replied that Mr. C----was the
kindest of husbands, and was crushed with sorrow at his loss; but spite
of the assurance, Will, when he reached the house, had neither look nor
word for him. He just put his arms about mother's neck, and mingled his
grief with her words of sympathy and love.

Martha was shortly after laid by father's side, and as we stood weeping
in that awful moment when the last spadeful of earth completes the
sepulture, Will, no longer master of himself, stepped up before Mr.
C----:

"Murderer," he said, "one day you shall answer to me for the death of
her who lies there!"

When Will next presented himself at Mr. Majors's office, he was told
that his services had been wholly satisfactory, and that he could have
work at any time he desired. This was gratifying, but a sweeter pleasure
was to lay his winter's wages in mother's lap. Through his help, and her
business ability, our pecuniary affairs were in good condition. We
were comfortably situated, and as Salt Creek Valley now boasted of a
schoolhouse, mother wished Will to enter school. He was so young when
he came West that his school-days had been few; nor was the prospect
of adding to their number alluring. After the excitement of life on the
plains, going to school was dull work; but Will realized that there was
a world beyond the prairie's horizon, and he entered school, determined
to do honest work.

Our first teacher was of the good, old-fashioned sort. He taught
because he had to live. He had no love for his work, and knew nothing of
children. The one motto he lived up to was, "Spare the rod and spoil the
child." As Will was a regular Tartar in the schoolroom, he, more than
all the other scholars, made him put his smarting theory into practice.
Almost every afternoon was attended with the dramatic attempt to switch
Will. The schoolroom was separated into two grand divisions, "the boys
on teacher's side," and those "on the Cody side." The teacher would send
his pets out to get switches, and part of our division--we girls, of
course--would begin to weep; while those who had spunk would spit on
their hands, clench their fists, and "dare 'em to bring them switches
in!" Those were hot times in old Salt Creek Valley!

One morning Turk, too, was seized with educational ambition, and
accompanied Will to school. We tried to drive him home, but he followed
at a distance, and as we entered the schoolhouse, he emerged from the
shrubbery by the roadside and crept under the building.

Alas for the scholars, and alas for the school! Another ambitious dog
reposed beneath the temple of learning.

Will, about that time, was having a bad quarter of an hour. An
examination into his knowledge, or lack of it, was under way, and he was
hard pressed. Had he been asked how to strike a trail, locate water,
or pitch a tent, his replies would have been full and accurate, but
the teacher's queries seemed as foolish as the "Reeling and Writhing,
Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision" of the Mock Turtle in
"Alice in Wonderland."

Turk effected an unexpected rescue. Snarls were heard beneath the
schoolhouse; then savage growls and yelps, while the floor resounded
with the whacks of the canine combatants. With a whoop that would not
have disgraced an Indian, Will was out of doors, shouting, "Eat him up,
Turk! Eat him up!"

The owner of the opposing dog was one Steve Gobel. 'Twixt him and Will
a good-sized feud existed. Steve was also on the scene, with a defiant,
"Sic 'em, Nigger!" and the rest of the school followed in his wake.

Of the twisting, yelping bundle of dog-flesh that rolled from under the
schoolhouse it was difficult to say which was Turk and which Nigger.
Eliza and I called to Turk, and wept because he would not hear. The
teacher ordered the children back to their studies, but they were
as deaf as Turk; whereat the enraged pedagogue hopped wildly about,
flourishing a stick and whacking every boy that strayed within reach of
it.

Nigger soon had enough of the fight, and striking his tail-colors, fled
yelping from the battle-ground. His master, Steve Gobel, a large youth
of nineteen or twenty years, pulled off his coat to avenge upon Will
the dog's defeat, but the teacher effected a Solomon-like compromise by
whipping both boys for bringing their dogs to school, after which the
interrupted session was resumed.

But Gobel nursed his wrath, and displayed his enmity in a thousand small
ways. Will paid no attention to him, but buckled down to his school
work. Will was a born "lady's man," and when Miss Mary Hyatt complicated
the feud 'twixt him and Steve, it hurried to its climax. Mary was older
than Will, but she plainly showed her preference for him over Master
Gobel. Steve had never distinguished himself in an Indian fight; he was
not a hero, but just a plain boy.

Now, indeed, was Will's life unendurable; "patience had had its perfect
work." He knew that a boy of twelve, however strong and sinewy, was
not a match for an almost full-grown man; so, to balance matters, he
secreted on his person an old bowie-knife. When next he met Steve,
the latter climaxed his bullying tactics by striking the object of his
resentment; but he was unprepared for the sudden leap that bore him
backward to the earth. Size and strength told swiftly in the struggle
that succeeded, but Will, with a dextrous thrust, put the point of the
bowie into the fleshy part of Steve's lower leg, a spot where he knew
the cut would not be serious.

The stricken bully shrieked that he was killed; the children gathered
round, and screamed loudly at the sight of blood. "Will Cody has killed
Steve Gobel!" was the wailing cry, and Will, though he knew Steve was
but pinked, began to realize that frontier styles of combat were not
esteemed in communities given up to the soberer pursuits of spelling,
arithmetic, and history. Steve, he knew, was more frightened than hurt;
but the picture of the prostrate, ensanguined youth, and the group of
awestricken children, bore in upon his mind the truth that his act was
an infraction of the civil code; that even in self-defense, he had no
right to use a knife unless his life was threatened.

The irate pedagogue was hastening to the scene, and after one glance at
him, Will incontinently fled. At the road he came upon a wagon train,
and with a shout of joy recognized in the "boss" John Willis, a
wagon-master employed by Russell, Majors & Waddell, and a great friend
of the "boy extra." Will climbed up behind Willis on his horse, and
related his escapade to a close and sympathetic listener.

"If you say so, Billy," was his comment, "I'll go over and lick the
whole outfit, and stampede the school."

"No, let the school alone," replied Will; "but I guess I'll graduate, if
you'll let me go along with you this trip."

Willis readily agreed, but insisted upon returning to the schoolhouse.
"I m not going," said he, "to let you be beaten by a bully of a boy, and
a Yankee school-teacher, with a little learning, but not a bit of sand."
His idea of equalizing forces was that he and "Little Billy" should
fight against the pedagogue and Steve.

Will consented, and they rode back to the schoolhouse, on the door
of which Willis pounded with his revolver butt, and when the door was
opened he invited Gobel and the "grammar man" to come forth and do
battle. But Steve had gone home, and the teacher, on seeing the two
gladiators, fled, while the scholars, dismissing themselves, ran home in
a fright.

That night mother received a note from the teacher.

He was not hired, he wrote, to teach desperadoes; therefore Will was
dismissed. But Will had already dismissed himself, and had rejoined the
larger school whose walls are the blue bowl called the sky. And long
after was his name used by the pedagogue to conjure up obedience in his
pupils; unless they kissed the rod, they, too, might go to the bad, and
follow in Will Cody's erring footsteps.

Willis and Will had gone but a piece on the road when horsemen were seen
approaching.

"Mr. Gobel and the officers are after me," said Will.

"Being after you and gittin' you are two different things," said the
wagon-master. "Lie low, and I'll settle the men."

Mr. Gobel and his party rode up with the information that they had come
to arrest Will; but they got no satisfaction from Willis. He would not
allow them to search the wagons, and they finally rode away. That
night, when the camp was pitched, the wagon-master gave Will a mule, and
accompanied him home. We were rejoiced to see him, especially mother,
who was much concerned over his escapade.

"Oh, Will, how could you do such a thing?" she said, sorrowfully. "It is
a dreadful act to use a knife on any one."

Will disavowed any homicidal intentions; but his explanations made
little headway against mother's disapproval and her disappointment over
the interruption of his school career. As it seemed the best thing to
do, she consented to his going with the wagon train under the care of
John Willis, and the remainder of the night was passed in preparations
for the journey.



CHAPTER VIII. -- DEATH AND BURIAL OF TURK.

THIS trip of Will's covered only two months, and was succeeded by
another expedition, to the new post at Fort Wallace, at Cheyenne Pass.

Meanwhile mother had decided to improve the opportunity afforded by
her geographical position, and under her supervision "The Valley Grove
House" was going up.

The hotel commanded a magnificent prospect. Below lay the beautiful
Salt Creek Valley. It derived its name from the saline properties of the
little stream that rushed along its pebbly bed to empty its clear waters
into the muddy Missouri. From the vantage-ground of our location Salt
Creek looked like a silver thread, winding its way through the rich
verdure of the valley. The region was dotted with fertile farms; from
east to west ran the government road, known as the Old Salt Lake Trail,
and back of us was Cody Hill, named for my father. Our house stood on
the side hill, just above the military road, and between us and the
hilltop lay the grove that gave the hotel its name. Government hill,
which broke the eastern sky-line, hid Leavenworth and the Missouri
River, culminating to the south in Pilot Knob, the eminence on which my
father was buried, also beyond our view.

Mother's business sagacity was justified in the hotel venture. The trail
began its half-mile ascent of Cody Hill just below our house, and at
this point the expedient known as "doubling" was employed. Two teams
hauled a wagon up the steep incline, the double team returning for the
wagon left behind. Thus the progress of a wagon train, always slow,
became a very snail's pace, and the hotel was insured a full quota of
hungry trainmen.

Will found that his wages were of considerable aid to mother in the
large expense incurred by the building of the hotel; and the winter
drawing on, forbidding further freighting trips, he planned an
expedition with a party of trappers. More money was to be made at this
business during the winter than at any other time.

The trip was successful, and contained only one adventure spiced
with danger, which, as was so often the case, Will twisted to his own
advantage by coolness and presence of mind.

One morning, as he was making the round of his traps, three Indians
appeared on the trail, each leading a pony laden with pelts. One had a
gun; the others carried bows and arrows. The odds were three to one, and
the brave with the gun was the most to be feared.

This Indian dropped his bridle-rein and threw up his rifle; but before
it was at his shoulder Will had fired, and he fell forward on his face.
His companions bent their bows, one arrow passing through Will's hat and
another piercing his arm--the first wound he ever received. Will swung
his cap about his head.

"This way! Here they are!" he shouted to an imaginary party of friends
at his back. Then with his revolver he wounded another of the Indians,
who, believing reinforcements were at hand, left their ponies and fled.

Will took the ponies on the double-quick back to camp, and the trappers
decided to pull up stakes at once. It had been a profitable season, and
the few more pelts to be had were not worth the risk of an attack by
avenging Indians; so they packed their outfit, and proceeded to Fort
Laramie. Will realized a handsome sum from the sale of his captured
furs, besides those of the animals he had himself trapped.

At the fort were two men bound east, and impatient to set out, and Will,
in his haste to reach home, joined forces with them. Rather than wait
for an uncertain wagon train, they decided to chance the dangers of the
road. They bought three ponies and a pack-mule for the camp outfit, and
sallied forth in high spirits.

Although the youngest of the party, Will was the most experienced
plainsman, and was constantly on the alert. They reached the Little Blue
River without sign of Indians, but across the stream Will espied a band
of them. The redskins were as keen of eye, and straightway exchanged the
pleasures of the chase for the more exciting pursuit of human game. But
they had the river to cross; and this gave the white men a good start.
The pursuit was hot, and grew hotter, but the kindly darkness fell, and
under cover of it the trio got safely away. That night they camped in a
little ravine that afforded shelter from both Indians and weather.

A look over the ravine disclosed a cave that promised a snug harbor, and
therein Will and one of his companions spread their blankets and fell
asleep. The third man, whose duty it was to prepare the supper, kindled
a fire just inside the cave, and returned outside for a supply of fuel.
When he again entered the cave the whole interior was revealed by the
bright firelight, and after one look he gave a yell of terror, dropped
his firewood, and fled.

Will and the other chap were on their knees instantly, groping for their
rifles, in the belief that the Indians were upon them; but the sight
that met their eyes was more terror-breeding than a thousand Indians. A
dozen bleached and ghastly skeletons were gathered with them around the
camp-fire, and seemed to nod and sway, and thrust their long-chilled
bones toward the cheery blaze.

Ghastly as it was within the cave, Will found it more unpleasant in the
open. The night was cold, and a storm threatened.

"Well," said he to his companions, "we know the worst that's in there
now. Those old dead bones won't hurt us. Let's go back."

"Not if I know myself, sonny," returned one of the men decidedly, and
the other heartily agreed with him, swearing that as it was, he should
not be able to close his eyes for a week. So, after a hurried lunch upon
the cold provisions, the party mounted their ponies and pushed on. The
promised snowstorm materialized, and shortly became a young blizzard,
and obliged to dismount and camp in the open prairie, they made a
miserable night of it.

But it had an end, as all things have, and with the morning they resumed
the trail, reaching Marysville, on the Big Blue, after many trials and
privations.

From here the trail was easier, as the country was pretty well settled,
and Will reached home without further adventure or misadventure. Here
there was compensation for hardship in the joy of handing over to mother
all his money, realizing that it would lighten her burdens--burdens
borne that she might leave her children provided for when she could
no longer repel the dread messenger, that in all those years seemed to
hover so near that even our childish hearts felt its presence ere it
actually crossed the threshold.

It was early in March when Will returned from his trapping expedition.
Mother's business was flourishing, though she herself grew frailer with
the passing of each day. The summer that came on was a sad one for us
all, for it marked Turk's last days on earth. One evening he was lying
in the yard, when a strange dog came up the road, bounded in, gave Turk
a vicious bite, and went on. We dressed the wound, and thought little of
it, until some horsemen rode up, with the inquiry, "Have you seen a dog
pass here?"

We answered indignantly that a strange dog had passed, and had bitten
our dog.

"Better look out for him, then," warned the men as they rode away. "The
dog is mad."

Consternation seized us. It was dreadful to think of Turk going mad--he
who had been our playmate from infancy, and who, through childhood's
years, had grown more dear to us than many human beings could; but
mother knew the matter was serious, and issued her commands. Turk must
be shut up, and we must not even visit him for a certain space. And so
we shut him up, hoping for the best; but it speedily became plain that
the poison was working in his veins, and that the greatest kindness we
could do him was to kill him.

That was a frightful alternative. Will utterly refused to shoot him, and
the execution was delegated to the hired man, Will stipulating that
none of his weapons should be used, and that he be allowed to get out of
ear-shot.

Late that afternoon, just before sunset, we assembled in melancholy
silence for the funeral. A grave had been dug on the highest point of
the eastern extremity of Cody Hill, and decorated in black ribbons, we
slowly filed up the steep path, carrying Turk's body on a pine board
softened with moss. Will led the procession with his hat in his hand,
and every now and then his fist went savagely at his eyes. When we
reached the grave, we formed around it in a tearful circle, and Will,
who always called me "the little preacher," told me to say the Lord's
Prayer. The sun was setting, and the brilliant western clouds were
shining round about us. There was a sighing in the treetops far below
us, and the sounds in the valley were muffled and indistinct.

"Our Father which art in heaven," I whispered softly, as all the
children bent their heads, "Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." I paused, and the other
children said the rest in chorus. The next day Will procured a large
block of red bloodstone, which abounds in that country, squared it off,
carved the name of Turk upon it in large letters, and we placed it at
the head of the grave.

To us there had been no incongruity in the funeral ceremonials and
burial. Turk had given us all that dog could give; we, for our part,
gave him Christian sepulture. Our sorrow was sincere. We had lost an
honest, loyal friend. For many succeeding days his grave was garlanded
with fresh flowers, placed there by loving hands. Vale Turk! Would that
our friends of the higher evolution were all as stanch as thou!

THE BURIAL OF TURK.

     Only a dog! but the tears fall fast.
     As we lay him to rest underneath the green sod,
     Where bountiful nature, the sweet summer through,
     Will deck him with daisies and bright goldenrod.

     The loving thought of a boyish heart
     Marks the old dog's grave with a bloodstone red;
     The name, carved in letters rough and rude,
     Keeps his memory green, though his life be sped.
     For the daring young hero of wood and plain,

     Like all who are generous, strong, and brave,
     Has a heart that is loyal and kind and true,
     And shames not to weep o'er his old friend's grave.

     Only a dog, do you say? but I deem
     A dog who with faithfulness fills his trust,
     More worthy than many a man to be given
     A tribute of love, when but ashes and dust.

An unusually good teacher now presided at the schoolhouse in our
neighborhood, and Will was again persuaded into educational paths.
He put in a hard winter's work; but with the coming of spring and its
unrest, the swelling of buds and the springing of grass, the return
of the birds and the twittering from myriad nests, the Spirits of the
Plains beckoned to him, and he joined a party of gold-hunters on the
long trail to Pike's Peak.

The gold excitement was at its apogee in 1860. By our house had passed
the historic wagon bearing on its side the classic motto, "Pike's Peak
or Bust!" Afterward, stranded by the wayside, a whole history of failure
and disappointment, borne with grim humor, was told by the addition of
the eloquent word, "Busted!"

For all his adventures, Will was only fourteen, and although tall for
his age, he had not the physical strength that might have been expected
from his hardy life. It was not strange that he should take the gold
fever; less so that mother should dread to see him again leave home to
face unknown perils; and it is not at all remarkable that upon reaching
Auraria, now Denver, he should find that fortunes were not lying around
much more promiscuously in a gold country than in any other.

Recent events have confirmed a belief that under the excitement of a
gold craze men exercise less judgment than at any other time. Except in
placer mining, which almost any one can learn, gold mining is a science.
Now and again a nugget worth a fortune is picked up, but the average
mortal can get a better livelihood, with half the work, in almost any
other field of effort. To become rich a knowledge of ores and mining
methods is indispensable.

But Will never reached the gold-fields. Almost the first person he met
on the streets of Julesberg was George Chrisman, who had been chief
wagon-master for Russell, Majors & Waddell. Will had become well
acquainted with Chrisman on the various expeditions he had made for the
firm.

This man was located at Julesberg as agent for the Pony Express line,
which was in process of formation. This line was an enterprise of
Russell, Majors & Waddell. Mr. Russell met in Washington the Senator
from California. This gentleman knew that the Western firm of
contractors was running a daily stagecoach from the Missouri River to
Sacramento, and he urged upon Mr. Russell the desirability of operating
a pony express line along the same route. There was already a line known
as the "Butterfield Route," but this was circuitous; the fastest time
ever made on it was twenty-one days.

Mr. Russell laid the matter before his partners. They were opposed
to it, as they were sure it would be a losing venture; but the senior
member urged the matter so strongly that they consented to try it, for
the good of the country, with no expectation of profit. They utilized
the stagecoach stations already established, and only about two months
were required to put the Pony Express line in running order.

Riders received from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and twenty-five
dollars a month, but they earned it. In order to stand the life great
physical strength and endurance were necessary; in addition, riders must
be cool, brave, and resourceful. Their lives were in constant peril,
and they were obliged to do double duty in case the comrade that was to
relieve them had been disabled by outlaws or Indians.

Two hundred and fifty miles was the daily distance that must be made;
this constituted an average of a little over ten miles an hour. In the
exceedingly rough country this average could not be kept up; to balance
it, there were a few places in the route where the rider was expected to
cover twenty-five miles an hour.

In making such a run, it is hardly necessary to say that no extra weight
was carried. Letters were written on the finest tissue paper; the charge
was at the rate of five dollars for half an ounce. A hundred of
these letters would make a bulk not much larger than an ordinary
writing-tablet.


The mail-pouches were never to carry more than twenty pounds. They
were leather bags, impervious to moisture; the letters, as a further
protection, were wrapped in oiled silk. The pouches were locked, sealed,
and strapped to the rider's side. They were not unlocked during the
journey from St. Joseph to Sacramento.

The first trip was made in ten days; this was a saving of eleven days
over the best time ever made by the "Butterfield Route." Sometimes the
time was shortened to eight days; but an average trip was made in nine.
The distance covered in this time was nineteen hundred and sixty-six
miles.

President Buchanan's last presidential message was carried in December,
1860, in a few hours over eight days. President Lincoln's inaugural, the
following March, was transmitted in seven days and seventeen hours. This
was the quickest trip ever made.

The Pony Express line made its worth at once felt. It would have become
a financial success but that a telegraph line was put into operation
over the same stretch of territory, under the direction of Mr. Edward
Creighton. The first message was sent over the wires the 24th of
October, 1861. The Pony Express line had outlived its usefulness, and
was at once discontinued. But it had accomplished its main purpose,
which was to determine whether the route by which it went could be made
a permanent track for travel the year through. The cars of the Union
Pacific road now travel nearly the same old trails as those followed by
the daring riders of frontier days.

Mr. Chrisman gave Will a cordial greeting. He explained the business of
the express line to his young friend, and stated that the company had
nearly perfected its arrangements. It was now buying ponies and putting
them into good condition, preparatory to beginning operations. He added,
jokingly:

"It's a pity you're not a few years older, Billy. I would give you a job
as Pony Express rider. There's good pay in it."

Will was at once greatly taken with the idea, and begged so hard to be
given a trial that Mr. Chrisman consented to give him work for a month.
If the life proved too hard for him, he was to be laid off at the end
of that time. He had a short run of forty-five miles; there were three
relay stations, and he was expected to make fifteen miles an hour.

The 3d of April, 1860, Mr. Russell stood ready to receive the mail from
a fast New York train at St. Joseph. He adjusted the letter-pouch on the
pony in the presence of an excited crowd. Besides the letters, several
large New York papers printed special editions on tissue paper for
this inaugural trip. The crowd plucked hairs from the tail of the first
animal to start on the novel journey, and preserved these hairs as
talismans. The rider mounted, the moment for starting came, the signal
was given, and off he dashed.

At the same moment Sacramento witnessed a similar scene; the rider of
that region started on the two thousand mile ride eastward as the other
started westward. All the way along the road the several other riders
were ready for their initial gallop.

Will looked forward eagerly to the day when the express line should
be set in motion, and when the hour came it found him ready, standing
beside his horse, and waiting for the rider whom he was to relieve.
There was a clatter of hoofs, and a horseman dashed up and flung him
the saddlebags. Will threw them upon the waiting pony, vaulted into the
saddle, and was off like the wind.

The first relay station was reached on time, and Will changed with
hardly a second's loss of time, while the panting, reeking animal he had
ridden was left to the care of the stock-tender. This was repeated at
the end of the second fifteen miles, and the last station was reached a
few minutes ahead of time. The return trip was made in good order, and
then Will wrote to us of his new position, and told us that he was in
love with the life.



CHAPTER IX. -- WILL AS PONY EXPRESS RIDER.

AFTER being pounded against a saddle three dashes daily for three
months, to the tune of fifteen miles an hour, Will began to feel a
little loose in his joints, and weary withal, but he was determined
to "stick it out." Besides the daily pounding, the track of the Pony
Express rider was strewn with perils. A wayfarer through that wild
land was more likely to run across outlaws and Indians than to pass
unmolested, and as it was known that packages of value were frequently
dispatched by the Pony Express line, the route was punctuated by
ambuscades.

Will had an eye out every trip for a hold-up, but three months went by
before he added that novelty to his other experiences. One day, as he
flew around a bend in a narrow pass, he confronted a huge revolver in
the grasp of a man who manifestly meant business, and whose salutation
was:

"Halt! Throw up your hands!"

Most people do, and Will's hands were raised reluctantly. The highwayman
advanced, saying, not unkindly:

"I don't want to hurt you, boy, but I do want them bags."

Money packages were in the saddlebags, and Will was minded to save them
if he could, so, as the outlaw reached for the booty, Will touched the
pony with his foot, and the upshot was satisfactory to an unexpected
degree. The plunge upset the robber, and as the pony swept over him he
got a vicious blow from one hoof. Will wheeled for a revolver duel, but
the foe was prostrate, stunned, and bleeding at the head. Will disarmed
the fellow, and pinioned his arms behind him, and then tied up his
broken head. Will surmised that the prisoner must have a horse hidden
hard by, and a bit of a search disclosed it. When he returned with the
animal, its owner had opened his eyes and was beginning to remember a
few things. Will helped him to mount, and out of pure kindness tied him
on; then he straddled his own pony, and towed the dismal outfit along
with him.

It was the first time that he had been behind on his run, but by way of
excuse he offered to Mr. Chrisman a broken-headed and dejected gentleman
tied to a horse's back; and Chrisman, with a grin, locked the excuse up
for future reference.

A few days after this episode Will received a letter from Julia, telling
him that mother was ill, and asking him to come home. He at once sought
out Mr. Chrisman, and giving his reason, asked to be relieved.

"I'm sorry your mother is sick," was the answer, "but I'm glad something
has occurred to make you quit this life. It's wearing you out, Billy,
and you're too gritty to give it up without a good reason."

Will reached home to find mother slightly improved. For three weeks was
he content to remain idly at home; then (it was November of 1860) his
unquiet spirit bore him away on another trapping expedition, this time
with a young friend named David Phillips.

They bought an ox-team and wagon to transport the traps, camp outfit,
and provisions, and took along a large supply of ammunition, besides
extra rifles. Their destination was the Republican River. It coursed
more than a hundred miles from Leavenworth, but the country about it was
reputed rich in beaver. Will acted as scout on the journey, going ahead
to pick out trails, locate camping grounds, and look out for breakers.
The information concerning the beaver proved correct; the game was
indeed so plentiful that they concluded to pitch a permanent camp and
see the winter out.

They chose a hollow in a sidehill, and enlarged it to the dimensions of
a decent-sized room. A floor of logs was put in, and a chimney fashioned
of stones, the open lower part doing double duty as cook-stove and
heater; the bed was spread in the rear, and the wagon sheltered the
entrance. A corral of poles was built for the oxen, and one corner of
it protected by boughs. Altogether, they accounted their winter quarters
thoroughly satisfactory and agreeable.

The boys had seen no Indians on their trip out, and were not concerned
in that quarter, though they were too good plainsmen to relax their
vigilance. There were other foes, as they discovered the first night in
their new quarters. They were aroused by a commotion in the corral where
the oxen were confined, and hurrying out with their rifles, they found
a huge bear intent upon a feast of beef. The oxen were bellowing in
terror, one of them dashing crazily about the inclosure, and the other
so badly hurt that it could not get up.

Phillips, who was in the lead, fired first, but succeeded only in
wounding the bear. Pain was now added to the savagery of hunger, and the
infuriated monster rushed upon Phillips. Dave leaped back, but his foot
slipped on a bit of ice, and he went down with a thud, his rifle flying
from his hand as he struck.

But there was a cool young head and a steady hand behind him. A ball
from Will's rifle entered the distended mouth of the onrushing bear and
pierced the brain, and the huge mass fell lifeless almost across Dave's
body.

Phillips's nerves loosened with a snap, and he laughed for very relief
as he seized Will's hands.

"That's the time you saved my life, old fellow!" said he. "Perhaps I can
do as much for you sometime."

"That's the first bear I ever killed," said Will, more interested in
that topic than in the one Dave held forth on.

One of the oxen was found to be mortally hurt, and a bullet ended its
misery. Will then took his first lesson in the gentle art of skinning a
bear.

Dave's chance to square his account with Will came a fortnight later.
They were chasing a bunch of elk, when Will fell, and discovered that he
could not rise.

"I'm afraid I've broken my leg," said he, as Dave ran to him.

Phillips had once been a medical student, and he examined the leg with a
professional eye. "You're right, Billy; the leg's broken," he reported.

Then he went to work to improvise splints and bind up the leg; and this
done, he took Will on his back and bore him to the dugout. Here the leg
was stripped, and set in carefully prepared splints, and the whole bound
up securely.

The outlook was unpleasant, cheerfully as one might regard it. Living
in the scoop of a sidehill when one is strong and able to get about and
keep the blood coursing is one thing; living there pent up through a
tedious winter is quite another. Dave meditated as he worked away at the
pair of crutches.

"Tell you what I think I'd better do," said he. "The nearest settlement
is some hundred miles away, and I can get there and back in twenty days.
Suppose I make the trip, get a team for our wagon, and come back for
you?"

The idea of being left alone and well-nigh helpless struck dismay to
Will's heart, but there was no help for it, and he assented. Dave put
matters into shipshape, piled wood in the dugout, cooked a quantity of
food and put it where Will could reach it without rising, and fetched
several days' supply of water. Mother, ever mindful of Will's education,
had put some school-books in the wagon, and Dave placed these beside the
food and water. When Phillips finally set out, driving the surviving ox
before him, he left behind a very lonely and homesick boy.

During the first day of his confinement Will felt too desolate to eat,
much less to read; but as he grew accustomed to solitude he derived real
pleasure from the companionship of books. Perhaps in all his life he
never extracted so much benefit from study as during that brief period
of enforced idleness, when it was his sole means of making the dragging
hours endurable. Dave, he knew, could not return in less than twenty
days, and one daily task, never neglected, was to cut a notch in the
stick that marked the humdrum passage of the days. Within the week he
could hobble about on his crutches for a short distance; after that he
felt more secure.

A fortnight passed. And one day, weary with his studies, he fell asleep
over his books. Some one touched his shoulder, and looking up, he saw an
Indian in war paint and feathers.

"How?" said Will, with a show of friendliness, though he knew the brave
was on the war-path.

Half a score of bucks followed at the heels of the first, squeezing into
the little dugout until there was barely room for them to sit down.

With a sinking heart Will watched them enter, but he plucked up
spirit again when the last, a chief, pushed in, for in this warrior he
recognized an Indian that he had once done a good turn.

Whatever Lo's faults, he never forgets a kindness any more than he
forgets an injury. The chief, who went by the name of Rain-in-the-Face,
at once recognized Will, and asked him what he was doing in that place.
Will displayed his bandages, and related the mishap that had made them
necessary, and refreshed the chief's memory of a certain occasion when
a blanket and provisions had drifted his way. Rain-in-the-Face replied,
with proper gravity, that he and his chums were out after scalps, and
confessed to designs upon Will's, but in consideration of Auld Lang Syne
he would spare the paleface boy.

Auld Lang Syne, however, did not save the blankets and provisions, and
the bedizened crew stripped the dugout almost bare of supplies; but Will
was thankful enough to see the back of the last of them.

Two days later a blizzard set in. Will took an inventory, and found
that, economy considered, he had food for a week; but as the storm would
surely delay Dave, he put himself on half rations.

Three weeks were now gone, and he looked for Dave momentarily; but as
night followed day, and day grew into night again, he was given over
to keen anxiety. Had Phillips lost his way? Had he failed to locate the
snow-covered dugout? Had he perished in the storm? Had he fallen victim
to Indians? These and like questions haunted the poor lad continually.
Study became impossible, and he lost his appetite for what food there
was left; but the tally on the stick was kept.

The twenty-ninth day dawned. Starvation stalked into the dugout. The
wood, too, was nigh gone. But great as was Will's physical suffering,
his mental distress was greater. He sat before a handful of fire,
shivering and hungry, wretched and despondent.

Hark! Was that his name? Choking with emotion, unable to articulate, he
listened intently. Yes; it was his name, and Dave's familiar voice, and
with all his remaining energy he made an answering call.

His voice enabled Phillips to locate the dugout, and a passage was
cleared through the snow. And when Will saw the door open, the tension
on his nerves let go, and he wept--"like a girl," as he afterward told
us.

"God bless you, Dave!" he cried, as he clasped his friend around the
neck.



CHAPTER X. -- ECHOES FROM SUMTER.

THE guns that opened on Fort Sumter set the country all ablaze. In
Kansas, where blood had already been shed, the excitement reached an
extraordinary pitch. Will desired to enlist, but mother would not listen
to the idea.

My brother had never forgotten the vow made in the post-trader's, and
now with the coming of war his opportunity seemed ripe and lawful; he
could at least take up arms against father's old-time enemies, and at
the same time serve his country. This aspect of the case was presented
to mother in glowing colors, backed by most eloquent pleading; but she
remained obdurate.

"You are too young to enlist, Willie," she said. "They would not accept
you, and if they did, I could not endure it. I have only a little time
to live; for my sake, then, wait till I am no more before you enter the
army."

This request was not to be disregarded, and Will promised that he would
not enlist while mother lived.

Kansas had long been the scene of bitter strife between the two parties,
and though there was a preponderance of the Free-Soil element when it
was admitted to the Union in 1861, we were fated to see some of the
horrors of slavery. Suffering makes one wondrous kind; mother had
suffered so much herself that the misery of others ever vibrated a
chord of sympathy in her breast, and our house became a station on "the
underground railway." Many a fugitive slave did we shelter, many here
received food and clothing, and, aided by mother, a great number reached
safe harbors.

One old man, named Uncle Tom, became so much attached to us that he
refused to go on. We kept him as help about the hotel. He was with us
several months, and we children grew very fond of him. Every evening
when supper was over, he sat before the kitchen fire and told a
breathless audience strange stories of the days of slavery. And one
evening, never to be forgotten, Uncle Tom was sitting in his accustomed
place, surrounded by his juvenile listeners, when he suddenly sprang
to his feet with a cry of terror. Some men had entered the hotel
sitting-room, and the sound of their voices drove Uncle Tom to his own
little room, and under the bed.

"Mrs. Cody," said the unwelcome visitors, "we understand that you are
harboring our runaway slaves. We propose to search the premises; and if
we find our property, you cannot object to our removing it."

Mother was sorely distressed for the unhappy Uncle Tom, but she knew
objection would be futile. She could only hope that the old colored man
had made good his escape.

But no! Uncle Tom lay quaking under his bed, and there his brutal master
found him. It is not impossible that there were slaveholders kind and
humane, but the bitter curse of slavery was the open door it left
for brutality and inhumanity; and never shall I forget the barbarity
displayed by the owner of Uncle Tom before our horrified eyes. The poor
slave was so old that his hair was wholly white; yet a rope was tied to
it, and, despite our pleadings, he was dragged from the house, every cry
he uttered evoking only a savage kick from a heavy riding-boot. When he
was out of sight, and his screams out of hearing, we wept bitterly on
mother's loving breast.

Uncle Tom again escaped, and made his way to our house, but he reached
it only to die. We sorrowed for the poor old slave, but thanked God that
he had passed beyond the inhumanity of man.

Debarred from serving his country as a soldier, Will decided to do so in
some other capacity, and accordingly took service with a United States
freight caravan, transporting supplies to Fort Laramie. On this trip
his frontier training and skill as a marksman were the means of saving a
life.

In Western travel the perils from outlaws and Indians were so real that
emigrants usually sought the protection of a large wagon-train. Several
families of emigrants journeyed under the wing of the caravan to which
Will was attached.

When in camp one day upon the bank of the Platte River, and the members
of the company were busied with preparations for the night's rest and
the next day's journey, Mamie Perkins, a little girl from one of the
emigrant families, was sent to the river for a pail of water. A moment
later a monster buffalo was seen rushing upon the camp. A chorus of
yells and a fusillade from rifles and revolvers neither checked nor
swerved him. Straight through the camp he swept, like a cyclone, leaping
ropes and boxes, overturning wagons, and smashing things generally.

Mamie, the little water-bearer, had filled her pail and was returning in
the track selected by the buffalo. Too terrified to move, she watched,
with white face and parted lips, the maddened animal sweep toward her,
head down and tail up, its hoofs beating a thunderous tattoo on the
plain.

Will had been asleep, but the commotion brought him to his feet, and
snatching up his rifle, he ran toward the little girl, aimed and fired
at the buffalo. The huge animal lurched, staggered a few yards farther,
then dropped within a dozen feet of the terrified child.

A shout of relief went up, and while a crowd of praising men gathered
about the embryo buffalo-hunter, Mamie was taken to her mother. Will
never relished hearing his praises sung, and as the camp was determined
to pedestal him as a hero, he ran away and hid in his tent.

Upon reaching Fort Laramie, Will's first business was to look up Alf
Slade, agent of the Pony Express line, whose headquarters were at
Horseshoe Station, twenty miles from the fort. He carried a letter of
recommendation from Mr. Russell, but Slade demurred.

"You're too young for a Pony Express rider," said he.

"I rode three months a year ago, sir, and I'm much stronger now," said
Will.

"Oh, are you the boy rider that was on Chrisman's division?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right; I'll try you. If you can't stand it, I 'll give you
something easier."

Will's run was from Red Buttes, on the North Platte, to Three Crossings,
on the Sweetwater--seventy-six miles.

The wilderness was of the kind that is supposed to howl, and no person
fond of excitement had reason to complain of lack of it. One day Will
arrived at his last station to find that the rider on the next run had
been mortally hurt by Indians. There being no one else to do it, he
volunteered to ride the eighty-five miles for the wounded man. He
accomplished it, and made his own return trip on time--a continuous ride
of three hundred and twenty-two miles. There was no rest for the rider,
but twenty-one horses were used on the run--the longest ever made by a
Pony Express rider.

Shortly afterward Will fell in with California Joe, a remarkable
frontier character. He was standing beside a group of bowlders that
edged the trail when Will first clapped eyes on him, and the Pony
Express man instantly reached for his revolver. The stranger as quickly
dropped his rifle, and held up his hands in token of friendliness.
Will drew rein, and ran an interested eye over the man, who was clad in
buckskin.

California Joe, who was made famous in General Custer's book, entitled
"Life on the Plains," was a man of wonderful physique, straight and
stout as a pine. His red-brown hair hung in curls below his shoulders;
he wore a full beard, and his keen, sparkling eyes were of the brightest
hue. He came from an Eastern family, and possessed a good education,
somewhat rusty from disuse.

"Hain't you the boy rider I has heard of--the youngest rider on the
trail?" he queried, in the border dialect. Will made an affirmative
answer, and gave his name.

"Waal," said Joe, "I guess you've got some money on this trip. I was
strikin' fer the Big Horn, and I found them two stiffs up yonder layin'
fer ye. We had a little misunderstandin', and now I has 'em to plant."

Will thanked him warmly, and begged him not to risk the perils of the
Big Horn; but California Joe only laughed, and told him to push ahead.

When Will reached his station he related his adventure, and the
stock-tender said it was "good by, California Joe" But Will had
conceived a better opinion of his new friend, and he predicted his safe
return.

This confidence was justified by the appearance of California Joe, three
months later, in the camp of the Pony Riders on the Overland trail. He
received a cordial greeting, and was assured by the men that they had
not expected to see him alive again. In return he told them his story,
and a very interesting story it was.

"Some time ago," said he (I shall not attempt to reproduce his dialect),
"a big gang of gold-hunters went into the Big Horn country. They never
returned, and the general sent me to see if I could get any trace of
them. The country is full of Indians, and I kept my eye skinned for
them, but I wasn't looking for trouble from white men. I happened to
leave my revolver where I ate dinner one day, and soon after discovering
the loss I went back after the gun. Just as I picked it up I saw a white
man on my trail. I smelled trouble, but turned and jogged along as if
I hadn't seen anything. That night I doubled back over my trail until I
came to the camp where the stranger belonged. As I expected, he was
one of a party of three, but they had five horses. I'll bet odds, Pard
Billy"--this to Will--"that the two pilgrims laying for you belonged to
this outfit.

"They thought I'd found gold, and were going to follow me until I struck
the mine, then do me up and take possession.

"The gold is there, too, lots of it. There's silver, iron, copper, and
coal, too, but no one will look at them so long as gold is to be had;
but those that go for gold will, many of them, leave their scalps
behind.

"We kept the trail day after day; the men stuck right to me, the chap
ahead keeping me in sight and marking out the trail for his pard. When
we got into the heart of the Indian country I had to use every caution;
I steered clear of every smoke that showed a village or camp, and didn't
use my rifle on game, depending on the rations I had with me.

"At last I came to a spot that showed signs of a battle. Skulls and
bones were strewn around, and after a look about I was satisfied beyond
doubt that white men had been of the company. The purpose of my trip was
accomplished; I could safely report that the party of whites had been
exterminated by Indians.

"The question now was, could I return without running into Indians? The
first thing was to give my white pursuers the slip.

"That night I crept down the bed of a small stream, passed their camp,
and struck the trail a half mile or so below.

"It was the luckiest move I ever made. I had ridden but a short distance
when I heard the familiar war-whoop, and knew that the Indians had
surprised my unpleasant acquaintances and taken their scalps. I should
have shared the same fate if I hadn't moved.

"But, boys, it is a grand and beautiful country, full of towering
mountains, lovely valleys, and mighty trees."

About the middle of September the Indians became very troublesome
along the Sweetwater. Will was ambushed one day, but fortunately he was
mounted on one of the fleetest of the company's horses, and lying flat
on the animal's back, he distanced the redskins. At the relay station he
found the stock-tender dead, and as the horses had been driven off, he
was unable to get a fresh mount; so he rode the same horse to Plontz
Station, twelve miles farther.

A few days later the station boss of the line hailed Will with the
information:

"There's Injun signs about; so keep your eyes open."

"I'm on the watch, boss," was Will's answer, as he exchanged ponies and
dashed away.

The trail ran through a grim wild. It was darkened by mountains,
overhung with cliffs, and fringed with monster pines. The young rider's
every sense had been sharpened by frontier dangers. Each dusky rock
and tree was scanned for signs of lurking foes as he clattered down the
twilight track.

One large bowlder lay in plain view far down the valley, and for a
second he saw a dark object appear above it.

He kept his course until within rifle-shot, and then suddenly swerved
away in an oblique line. The ambush had failed, and a puff of smoke
issued from behind the bowlder. Two braves, in gorgeous war paint,
sprang up, and at the same time a score of whooping Indians rode out of
timber on the other side of the valley.

Before Will the mountains sloped to a narrow pass; could he reach
that he would be comparatively safe. The Indians at the bowlder were
unmounted, and though they were fleet of foot, he easily left them
behind. The mounted reds were those to be feared, and the chief rode
a very fleet pony. As they neared the pass Will saw that it was life
against life. He drew his revolver, and the chief, for his part, fitted
an arrow to his bow.

Will was a shade the quicker. His revolver cracked, and the warrior
pitched dead from his saddle. His fall was the signal for a shower of
arrows, one of which wounded the pony slightly; but the station was
reached on time.

The Indians were now in evidence all the time. Between Split Rock
and Three Crossings they robbed a stage, killed the driver and two
passengers, and wounded Lieutenant Flowers, the assistant division
agent. They drove the stock from the stations, and continually harassed
the Pony Express riders and stage-drivers. So bold did the reds become
that the Pony riders were laid off for six weeks, though stages were to
make occasional runs if the business were urgent. A force was
organized to search for missing stock. There were forty men in the
party--stage-drivers, express-riders, stock-tenders, and ranchmen;
and they were captained by a plainsman named Wild Bill, who was a good
friend of Will for many years.

He had not earned the sobriquet through lawlessness. It merely denoted
his dashing and daring. Physically he was well-nigh faultless--tall,
straight, and symmetrical, with broad shoulders and splendid chest. He
was handsome of face, with a clear blue eye, firm and well-shaped mouth,
aquiline nose, and brown, curling hair, worn long upon his shoulders.
Born of a refined and cultured family, he, like Will, seemingly
inherited from some remote ancestor his passion for the wild, free life
of the plains.

At this time Wild Bill was a well-known scout, and in this capacity
served the United States to good purpose during the war.



CHAPTER XI. -- A SHORT BUT DASHING INDIAN CAMPAIGN.

AS Will was one of the laid-off riders, he was allowed to join the
expedition against the Indian depredators, though he was the youngest
member of the company.

The campaign was short and sharp. The Indian trail was followed to
Powder River, and thence along the banks of the stream the party
traveled to within forty miles of the spot where old Fort Reno now
stands; from here the trail ran westerly, at the foot of the mountains,
and was crossed by Crazy Woman's Fork, a tributary of the Powder.

Originally this branch stream went by the name of the Big Beard, because
of a peculiar grass that fringed it. On its bank had stood a village of
the Crow Indians, and here a half-breed trader had settled. He bought
the red man's furs, and gave him in return bright-colored beads and
pieces of calico, paints, and blankets. In a short time he had all the
furs in the village; he packed them on ponies, and said good by to his
Indian friends. They were sorry to see him go, but he told them he would
soon return from the land of the paleface, bringing many gifts. Months
passed; one day the Indian sentinels reported the approach of a strange
object. The village was alarmed, for the Crows had never seen ox, horse,
or wagon; but the excitement was allayed when it was found that the
strange outfit was the property of the half-breed trader.

He had brought with him his wife, a white woman; she, too, was an object
of much curiosity to the Indians.

The trader built a lodge of wood and stones, and exposed all his goods
for sale. He had brought beads, ribbons, and brass rings as gifts for
all the tribe.

One day the big chief visited the store; the trader led him into a back
room, swore him to secrecy, and gave him a drink of black water. The
chief felt strangely happy. Usually he was very dignified and stately;
but under the influence of the strange liquid he sang and danced on the
streets, and finally fell into a deep sleep, from which he could not be
wakened. This performance was repeated day after day, until the Indians
called a council of war. They said the trader had bewitched their chief,
and it must be stopped, or they would kill the intruder. A warrior was
sent to convey this intelligence to the trader; he laughed, took the
warrior into the back room, swore him to secrecy, and gave him a drink
of the black water. The young Indian, in his turn, went upon the street,
and laughed and sang and danced, just as the chief had done. Surprised,
his companions gathered around him and asked him what was the matter.
"Oh, go to the trader and get some of the black water!" said he.

They asked for the strange beverage. The trader denied having any, and
gave them a drink of ordinary water, which had no effect. When the young
warrior awoke, they again questioned him. He said he must have been
sick, and have spoken loosely.

After this the chief and warrior were both drunk every day, and all
the tribe were sorely perplexed. Another council of war was held, and
a young chief arose, saying that he had made a hole in the wall of the
trader's house, and had watched; and it was true the trader gave their
friends black water. The half-breed and the two unhappy Indians were
brought before the council, and the young chief repeated his accusation,
saying that if it were not true, they might fight him. The second victim
of the black water yet denied the story, and said the young chief lied;
but the trader had maneuvered into the position he desired, and he
confessed. They bade him bring the water, that they might taste it; but
before he departed the young chief challenged to combat the warrior that
had said he lied. This warrior was the best spearsman of the tribe,
and all expected the death of the young chief; but the black water had
palsied the warrior's arm, his trembling hand could not fling true, he
was pierced to the heart at the first thrust. The tribe then repaired
to the trader's lodge, and he gave them all a drink of the black water.
They danced and sang, and then lay upon the ground and slept.

After two or three days the half-breed declined to provide black water
free; if the warriors wanted it, they must pay for it. At first he gave
them a "sleep," as they called it, for one robe or skin, but as the
stock of black water diminished, two, then three, then many robes
were demanded. At last he said he had none left except what he himself
desired. The Indians offered their ponies, until the trader had all the
robes and all the ponies of the tribe.

Now, he said, he would go back to the land of the paleface and procure
more of the black water. Some of the warriors were willing he should do
this; others asserted that he had plenty of black water left, and was
going to trade with their enemy, the Sioux. The devil had awakened in
the tribe. The trader's stores and packs were searched, but no black
water was found. 'Twas hidden, then, said the Indians. The trader must
produce it, or they would kill him. Of course he could not do this. He
had sowed the wind; he reaped the whirlwind. He was scalped before the
eyes of his horrified wife, and his body mutilated and mangled. The poor
woman attempted to escape; a warrior struck her with his tomahawk, and
she fell as if dead. The Indians fired the lodge. As they did so, a
Crow squaw saw that the white woman was not dead. She took the wounded
creature to her own lodge, bound up her wounds, and nursed her back to
strength. But the unfortunate woman's brain was crazed, and could not
bear the sight of a warrior.

As soon as she could get around she ran away. The squaws went out to
look for her, and found her crooning on the banks of the Big Beard. She
would talk with the squaws, but if a warrior appeared, she hid herself
till he was gone. The squaws took her food, and she lived in a covert on
the bank of the stream for many months. One day a warrior, out hunting,
chanced upon her. Thinking she was lost, he sought to catch her, to take
her back to the village, as all Indian tribes have a veneration for the
insane; but she fled into the hills, and was never seen afterward. The
stream became known as the "Place of the Crazy Woman," or Crazy Woman's
Fork, and has retained the name to this day.

At this point, to return to my narrative, the signs indicated that
reinforcements had reached the original body of Indians. The plainsmen
were now in the heart of the Indian country, the utmost caution was
required, and a sharp lookout was maintained. When Clear Creek, another
tributary of the Powder, was come up with, an Indian camp, some three
miles distant, was discovered on the farther bank.

A council of war was held. Never before had the white man followed
the red so far into his domain, and 'twas plain the Indian was off his
guard; not a scout was posted.

At Wild Bill's suggestion, the attack waited upon nightfall. Veiled by
darkness, the company was to surprise the Indian camp and stampede the
horses.

The plan was carried out without a hitch. The Indians outnumbered the
white men three to one, but when the latter rushed cyclonically through
the camp, no effort was made to repel them, and by the time the Indians
had recovered from their surprise the plainsmen had driven off all
the horses--those belonging to the reds as well as those that had been
stolen. A few shots were fired, but the whites rode scathless away, and
unpursued.

The line of march was now taken up for Sweetwater Bridge, and here, four
days later, the plainsmen brought up, with their own horses and about a
hundred Indian ponies.

This successful sadly repressed the hostilities for a space. The
recovered horses were put back on the road, and the stage-drivers and
express-riders resumed their interrupted activity.

"Billy," said Mr. Slade, who had taken a great fancy to Will--"Billy,
this is a hard life, and you're too young to stand it. You've done
good service, and in consideration of it I'll make you a supernumerary.
You'll have to ride only when it's absolutely necessary."

There followed for Will a period of _dolce far niente_; days when he
might lie on his back and watch the clouds drift across the sky; when
he might have an eye to the beauty of the woodland and the sweep of the
plain, without the nervous strain of studying every tree and knoll that
might conceal a lurking redskin. Winter closed in, and with it came the
memories of the trapping season of 1860-61, when he had laid low his
first and last bear. But there were other bears to be killed--the
mountains were full of them; and one bracing morning he turned his
horse's head toward the hills that lay down the Horseshoe Valley.
Antelope and deer fed in the valley, the sage-hen and the jack-rabbit
started up under his horse's hoofs, but such small game went by
unnoticed.

Two o'clock passed without a sign of bear, save some tracks in the snow.
The wintry air had put a keen edge on Will's appetite, and hitching his
tired horse, he shot one of the lately scorned sage-hens, and broiled it
over a fire that invited a longer stay than an industrious bear-hunter
could afford. But nightfall found him and his quarry still many miles
asunder, and as he did not relish the prospect of a chaffing from the
men at the station, he cast about for a camping-place, finding one in an
open spot on the bank of a little stream. Two more sage-hens were added
to the larder, and he was preparing to kindle a fire when the whinnying
of a horse caught his ear. He ran to his own horse to check the certain
response, resaddled him, and disposed everything for flight, should it
be necessary. Then, taking his rifle, he put forth on a reconnoissance.

He shortly came upon a bunch of horses, a dozen or more, around a crook
of the stream. Above them, on the farther bank, shone a light. Drawing
nearer, he saw that it came from a dugout, and he heard his own language
spoken. Reassured, he walked boldly up to the door and rapped.

Silence--followed by a hurried whispering, and the demand:

"Who's there?"

"Friend and white man," answered Will.

The door opened reluctantly, and an ugly-looking customer bade him
enter. The invitation was not responded to with alacrity, for eight such
villainous-looking faces as the dugout held it would have been hard to
match. Too late to retreat, there was nothing for it but a determined
front, and let wit point the way of escape. Two of the men Will
recognized as discharged teamsters from Lew Simpson's train, and from
his knowledge of their longstanding weakness he assumed, correctly, that
he had thrust his head into a den of horsethieves.

"Who's with you?" was the first query; and this answered, with sundry
other information esteemed essential, "Where's your horse?" demanded the
most striking portrait in the rogues' gallery.

"Down by the creek," said Will.

"All right, sonny; we'll go down and get him," was the obliging
rejoinder.

"Oh, don't trouble yourself," said Will. "I'll fetch him and put up
here over night, with your permission. I'll leave my gun here till I get
back."

"That's right; leave your gun, you won't need it," said the leader of
the gang, with a grin that was as near amiability as his rough, stern
calling permitted him. "Jim and I will go down with you after the
horse."

This offer compelled an acquiescence, Will consoling himself with the
reflection that it is easier to escape from two men than from eight.

When the horse was reached, one of the outlaws obligingly volunteered to
lead it.

"All right," said Will, carelessly. "I shot a couple of sage-hens here;
I'll take them along. Lead away!"

He followed with the birds, the second horsethief bringing up the rear.
As the dugout was neared he let fall one of the hens, and asked the chap
following to pick it up, and as the obliging rear guard stopped, Will
knocked him senseless with the butt of his revolver. The man ahead heard
the blow, and turned, with his hand on his gun, but Will dropped him
with a shot, leaped on his horse, and dashed off.

The sextet in the dugout sprang to arms, and came running down the bank,
and likely getting the particulars of the escape from the ruffian by
the sage-hen, who was probably only stunned for the moment, they buckled
warmly to the chase. The mountain-side was steep and rough, and men on
foot were better than on horseback; accordingly Will dismounted, and
clapping his pony soundly on the flank, sent him clattering on down the
declivity, and himself stepped aside behind a large pine. The pursuing
party rushed past him, and when they were safely gone, he climbed back
over the mountain, and made his way as best he could to the Horseshoe.
It was a twenty-five mile plod, and he reached the station early in the
morning, weary and footsore.

He woke the plainsmen, and related his adventure, and Mr. Slade at
once organized a party to hunt out the bandits of the dugout. Twenty
well-armed stock-tenders, stage-drivers, and ranchmen rode away at
sunrise, and, notwithstanding his fatigue, Will accompanied them as
guide.

But the ill-favored birds had flown; the dugout was deserted.

Will soon tired of this nondescript service, and gladly accepted a
position as assistant wagon-master under Wild Bill, who had taken a
contract to fetch a load of government freight from Rolla, Missouri.

He returned with a wagon-train to Springfield, in that state, and thence
came home on a visit. It was a brief one, however, for the air was too
full of war for him to endure inaction. Contented only when at work,
he continued to help on government freight contracts, until he received
word that mother was dangerously ill. Then he resigned his position and
hastened home.



CHAPTER XII. -- THE MOTHER'S LAST ILLNESS.

IT was now the autumn of 1863, and Will was a well-grown young man,
tall, strong, and athletic, though not yet quite eighteen years old. Our
oldest sister, Julia, had been married, the spring preceding, to Mr. J.
A. Goodman.

Mother had been growing weaker from day to day; being with her
constantly, we had not remarked the change for the worse; but Will was
much shocked by the transformation which a few months had wrought. Only
an indomitable will power had enabled her to overcome the infirmities of
the body, and now it seemed to us as if her flesh had been refined away,
leaving only the sweet and beautiful spirit.

Will reached home none too soon, for only three weeks after his return
the doctor told mother that only a few hours were left to her, and if
she had any last messages, it were best that she communicate them at
once. That evening the children were called in, one by one, to receive
her blessing and farewell. Mother was an earnest Christian character,
but at that time I alone of all the children appeared religiously
disposed. Young as I was, the solemnity of the hour when she charged me
with the spiritual welfare of the family has remained with me through
all the years that have gone. Calling me to her side, she sought to
impress upon my childish mind, not the sorrow of death, but the glory
of the resurrection. Then, as if she were setting forth upon a pleasant
journey, she bade me good by, and I kissed her for the last time in
life. When next I saw her face it was cold and quiet. The beautiful
soul had forsaken its dwelling-place of clay, and passed on through the
Invisible, to wait, a glorified spirit, on the farther shore for the
coming of the loved ones whose life-story was as yet unfinished.

Julia and Will remained with her throughout the night. Just before
death there came to her a brief season of long-lost animation, the
last flicker of the torch before darkness. She talked to them almost
continuously until the dawn. Into their hands was given the task of
educating the others of the family, and on their hearts and consciences
the charge was graven. Charlie, who was born during the early Kansas
troubles, had ever been a delicate child, and he lay an especial burden
on her mind.

"If," she said, "it be possible for the dead to call the living, I shall
call Charlie to me."

Within the space of a year, Charlie, too, was gone; and who shall say
that the yearning of a mother's heart for her child was not stronger
than the influences of the material world?

Upon Will mother sought to impress the responsibilities of his destiny.
She reminded him of the prediction of the fortune-teller, that "his name
would be known the world over."

"But," said she, "only the names of them that are upright, brave,
temperate, and true can be honorably known. Remember always that 'he
that overcometh his own soul is greater than he who taketh a city.'
Already you have shown great abilities, but remember that they carry
with them grave responsibilities. You have been a good son to me. In
the hour of need you have always aided me so that I can die now feeling
that my children are not unprovided for. I have not wished you to enlist
in the war, partly because I knew you were too young, partly because my
life was drawing near its close. But now you are nearly eighteen, and
if when I am gone your country needs you in the strife of which we in
Kansas know the bitterness, I bid you go as soldier in behalf of the
cause for which your father gave his life."

She talked until sleep followed exhaustion. When she awoke she tried to
raise herself in bed. Will sprang to aid her, and with the upward look
of one that sees ineffable things, she passed away, resting in his arms.

     Oh, the glory and the gladness
     Of a life without a fear;
     Of a death like nature fading
     In the autumn of the year;
     Of a sweet and dreamless slumber,
     In a faith triumphant borne,
     Till the bells of Easter wake her
     On the resurrection morn!

     Ah, for such a blessed falling
     Into quiet sleep at last,
     When the ripening grain is garnered,
     And the toil and trial past;
     When the red and gold of sunset
     Slowly changes into gray;
     Ah, for such a quiet passing,
     Through the night into the day!

The morning of the 22d day of November, 1863, began the saddest day of
our lives. We rode in a rough lumber wagon to Pilot Knob Cemetery, a
long, cold, hard ride; but we wished our parents to be united in death
as they had been in life, so buried mother in a grave next to father's.

The road leading from the cemetery forked a short distance outside of
Leavenworth, one branch running to that city, the other winding homeward
along Government Hill. When we were returning, and reached this fork,
Will jumped out of the wagon.

"I can't go home when I know mother is no longer there," said he. "I
am going to Leavenworth to see Eugene Hathaway. I shall stay with him
to-night."

We, pitied Will--he and mother had been so much to each other--and
raised no objection, as we should have done had we known the real
purpose of his visit.

The next morning, therefore, we were much surprised to see him and
Eugene ride into the yard, both clothed in, the blue uniforms of United
States soldiers. Overwhelmed with grief over mother's death, it seemed
more than we could bear to see our big brother ride off to war. We
threatened to inform the recruiting officers that he was not yet
eighteen; but he was too thoroughly in earnest to be moved by our
objections. The regiment in which he had enlisted was already ordered to
the front, and he had come home to say good by. He then rode away to
the hardships, dangers, and privations of a soldier's life. The joy of
action balanced the account for him, while we were obliged to accept the
usual lot of girlhood and womanhood--the weary, anxious waiting, when
the heart is torn with uncertainty and suspense over the fate of the
loved ones who bear the brunt and burden of the day.

The order sending Will's regiment to the front was countermanded, and
he remained for a time in Fort Leavenworth. His Western experiences were
well known there, and probably for this reason he was selected as
a bearer of military dispatches to Fort Larned. Some of our old
pro-slavery enemies, who were upon the point of joining the Confederate
army, learned of Will's mission, which they thought afforded them an
excellent chance to gratify their ancient grudge against the father by
murdering the son. The killing could be justified on the plea of service
rendered to their cause. Accordingly a plan was made to waylay Will and
capture his dispatches at a creek he was obliged to ford.

He received warning of this plot. On such a mission the utmost vigilance
was demanded at all times, and with an ambuscade ahead of him, he was
alertness itself. His knowledge of Indian warfare stood him in good
stead now. Not a tree, rock, or hillock escaped his keen glance. When he
neared the creek at which the attack was expected, he left the road, and
attempted to ford the stream four or five hundred yards above the common
crossing, but found it so swollen by recent rains that he was unable to
cross; so he cautiously picked his way back to the trail.

The assassins' camp was two or three hundred feet away from the creek.
Darkness was coming on, and he took advantage of the shelter afforded
by the bank, screening himself behind every clump of bushes. His enemies
would look for his approach from the other direction, and he hoped to
give them the slip and pass by unseen.

When he reached the point where he could see the little cabin where
the men were probably hiding, he ran upon a thicket in which five
saddle-horses were concealed.

"Five to one! I don't stand much show if they see me," he decided as he
rode quietly and slowly along, his carbine in his hand ready for use.

"There he goes, boys! he's at the ford!" came a sudden shout from the
camp, followed by the crack of a rifle. Two or three more shots rang
out, and from the bound his horse gave Will knew one bullet had reached
a mark. He rode into the water, then turned in his saddle and aimed like
a flash at a man within range. The fellow staggered and fell, and Will
put spurs to his horse, turning again only when the stream was crossed.
The men were running toward the ford, firing as they came, and getting
a warm return fire. As Will was already two or three hundred yards in
advance, pursuers on foot were not to be feared, and he knew that before
they could reach and mount their horses he would be beyond danger. Much
depended on his horse. Would the gallant beast, wounded as he was, be
able to long maintain the fierce pace he had set? Mile upon mile was put
behind before the stricken creature fell. Will shouldered the saddle
and bridle and continued on foot. He soon reached a ranch where a fresh
mount might be procured, and was shortly at Fort Larned.

After a few hours' breathing-spell, he left for Fort Leavenworth with
return dispatches. As he drew near the ford, he resumed his sharp
lookout, though scarcely expecting trouble. The planners of the
ambuscade had been so certain that five men could easily make away
with one boy that there had been no effort at disguise, and Will had
recognized several of them. He, for his part, felt certain that they
would get out of that part of the country with all dispatch; but he
employed none the less caution in crossing the creek, and his carbine
was ready for business as he approached the camp.

The fall of his horse's hoofs evoked a faint call from one of the
buildings. It was not repeated; instead there issued hollow moans.

It might be a trap; again, a fellow-creature might be at death's door.
Will rode a bit nearer the cabin entrance.

"Who's there?" he called.

"Come in, for the love of God! I am dying here alone!" was the reply.

"Who are you?"

"Ed Norcross."

Will jumped from his horse. This was the man at whom he had fired. He
entered the cabin.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"I was wounded by a bullet," moaned Norcross, "and my comrades deserted
me."

Will was now within range of the poor fellow lying on the floor.

"Will Cody!" he cried.

Will dropped on his knee beside the dying man, choking with the emotion
that the memory of long years of friendship had raised.

"My poor Ed!" he murmured. "And it was my bullet that struck you."

"It was in defense of your own life, Will," said Norcross. "God knows, I
don't blame you. Don't think too hard of me. I did everything I could
to save you. It was I who sent you warning. I hoped you might find some
other trail."

"I didn't shoot with the others," continued Norcross, after a short
silence. "They deserted me. They said they would send help back, but
they haven't."

Will filled the empty canteen lying on the floor, and rearranged the
blanket that served as a pillow; then he offered to dress the neglected
wound. But the gray of death was already upon the face of Norcross.

"Never mind, Will," he whispered; "it's not worth while. Just stay with
me till I die."

It was not a long vigil. Will sat beside his old friend, moistening his
pallid lips with water. In a very short time the end came. Will disposed
the stiffening limbs, crossing the hands over the heart, and with a last
backward look went out of the cabin.

It was his first experience in the bitterness and savagery of war, and
he set a grave and downcast face against the remainder of his journey.

As he neared Leavenworth he met the friend who had conveyed the dead
man's warning message, and to him he committed the task of bringing
home the body. His heaviness of spirit was scarcely mitigated by the
congratulations of the commander of Fort Leavenworth upon his pluck and
resources, which had saved both his life and the dispatches.

There followed another period of inaction, always irritating to a lad
of Will's restless temperament. Meantime, we at home were having our own
experiences.

We were rejoiced in great measure when sister Julia decided that we had
learned as much as might be hoped for in the country school, and
must thereafter attend the winter and spring terms of the school at
Leavenworth. The dresses she cut for us, however, still followed the
country fashion, which has regard rather to wear than to appearance, and
we had not been a day in the city school before we discovered that our
apparel had stamped "provincial" upon us in plain, large characters. In
addition to this, our brother-in-law, in his endeavor to administer the
estate economically, bought each of us a pair of coarse calfskin
shoes. To these we were quite unused, mother having accustomed us to
serviceable but pretty ones. The author of our "extreme" mortification,
totally ignorant of the shy and sensitive nature of girls, only laughed
at our protests, and in justice to him it may be said that he really had
no conception of the torture he inflicted upon us.

We turned to Will. In every emergency he was our first thought, and here
was an emergency that taxed his powers to an extent we did not dream of.
He made answer to our letter that he was no longer an opulent trainman,
but drew only the slender income of a soldier, and even that pittance
was in arrears. Disappointment was swallowed up in remorse. Had we
reflected how keenly he must feel his inability to help us, we would
not have sent him the letter, which, at worst, contained only a sly
suggestion of a fine opportunity to relieve sisterly distress. All his
life he had responded to our every demand; now allegiance was due his
country first. But, as was always the way with him, he made the best of
a bad matter, and we were much comforted by the receipt of the following
letter:

"MY DEAR SISTERS:

"I am sorry that I cannot help you and furnish you with such clothes
as you wish. At this writing I am so short of funds myself that if an
entire Mississippi steamer could be bought for ten cents I couldn't
purchase the smokestack. I will soon draw my pay, and I will send it,
every cent, to you. So brave it out, girls, a little longer. In the mean
time I will write to Al.

"Lovingly,

"WILL."


We were comforted, yes; but my last hope was gone, and I grew desperate.
I had never worn the obnoxious shoes purchased by my guardian, and I
proceeded to dispose of them forever. I struck what I regarded as a
famous bargain with an accommodating Hebrew, and came into possession
of a pair of shiny morocco shoes, worth perhaps a third of what mine
had cost. One would say they were designed for shoes, and they certainly
looked like shoes, but as certainly they were not wearable. Still they
were of service, for the transaction convinced my guardian that the
truest economy did not lie in the pur-chasing of calfskin shoes for at
least one of his charges. A little later he received a letter from Will,
presenting our grievances and advocating our cause. Will also sent us
the whole of his next month's pay as soon as he drew it.

In February, 1864, Sherman began his march through Mississippi.
The Seventh Kansas regiment, known as "Jennison's Jayhawkers," was
reorganized at Fort Leavenworth as veterans, and sent to Memphis, Tenn.,
to join General A. J. Smith's command, which was to operate against
General Forrest and cover the retreat of General Sturgis, who had
been so badly whipped by Forrest at Cross-Roads. Will was exceedingly
desirous of engaging in a great battle, and through some officers with
whom he was acquainted preferred a petition to be transferred to this
regiment. The request was granted, and his delight knew no bounds. He
wrote to us that his great desire was about to be gratified, that he
should soon know what a real battle was like.

He was well versed in Indian warfare; now he was ambitious to learn,
from experience, the superiority of civilized strife--rather, I should
say, of strife between civilized people.

General Smith had acquainted himself with the record made by the young
scout of the plains, and shortly after reaching Memphis he ordered Will
to report to headquarters for special service.

"I am anxious," said the general, "to gain reliable information
concerning the enemy's movements and position. This can only be done by
entering the Confederate camp. You possess the needed qualities--nerve,
coolness, resource--and I believe you could do it."

"You mean," answered Will, quietly, "that you wish me to go as a spy
into the rebel camp."

"Exactly. But you must understand the risk you run. If you are captured,
you will be hanged."

"I am ready to take the chances, sir," said Will; "ready to go at once,
if you wish."

General Smith's stern face softened into a smile at the prompt response.

"I am sure, Cody," said he, kindly, "that if any one can go through
safely, you will. Dodging Indians on the plains was good training
for the work in hand, which demands quick intelligence and ceaseless
vigilance. I never require such service of any one, but since you
volunteer to go, take these maps of the country to your quarters and
study them carefully. Return this evening for full instructions."

During the few days his regiment had been in camp, Will had been on
one or two scouting expeditions, and was somewhat familiar with the
immediate environments of the Union forces. The maps were unusually
accurate, showing every lake, river, creek, and highway, and even the
by-paths from plantation to plantation.

Only the day before, while on a reconnoissance, Will had captured a
Confederate soldier, who proved to be an old acquaintance named Nat
Golden. Will had served with Nat on one of Russell, Majors & Waddell's
freight trains, and at one time had saved the young man's life, and
thereby earned his enduring friendship. Nat was born in the East, became
infected with Western fever, and ran away from home in order to become a
plainsman.

"Well, this is too bad," said Will, when he recognized his old friend.
"I would rather have captured a whole regiment than you. I don't like
to take you in as a prisoner. What did you enlist on the wrong side for,
anyway?"

"The fortunes of war, Billy, my boy," laughed Nat. "Friend shall be
turned against friend, and brother against brother, you know. You
wouldn't have had me for a prisoner, either, if my rifle hadn't snapped;
but I'm glad it did, for I shouldn't want to be the one that shot you."

"Well, I don't want to see you strung up," said Will; "so hand me over
those papers you have, and I will turn you in as an ordinary prisoner."

Nat's face paled as he asked, "Do you think I'm a spy, Billy?"

"I know it."

"Well," was the reply, "I've risked my life to obtain these papers, but
I suppose they will be taken from me anyway; so I might as well give
them up now, and save my neck."

Examination showed them to be accurate maps of the location and position
of the Union army; and besides the maps, there were papers containing
much valuable information concerning the number of soldiers and officers
and their intended movements. Will had not destroyed these papers, and
he now saw a way to use them to his own advantage. When he reported for
final instructions, therefore, at General Smith's tent, in the evening,
Will said to him:

"I gathered from a statement dropped by the prisoner captured yesterday,
that a Confederate spy has succeeded in making out and carrying to the
enemy a complete map of the position of our regiment, together with some
idea of the projected plan of campaign."

"Ah," said the general; "I am glad that you have put me on my guard. I
will at once change my position, so that the information will be of no
value to them."

Then followed full instructions as to the duty required of the
volunteer.

"When will you set out?" asked the general.

"To-night, sir. I have procured my uniform, and have everything prepared
for an early start."

"Going to change your colors, eh?"

"Yes, for the time being, but not my principles."

The general looked at Will approvingly. "You will need all the wit,
pluck, nerve, and caution of which you are possessed to come through
this ordeal safely," said he. "I believe you can accomplish it, and I
rely upon you fully. Good by, and success go with you!"

After a warm hand-clasp, Will returned to his tent, and lay down for a
few hours' rest. By four o'clock he was in the saddle, riding toward the
Confederate lines.



CHAPTER XIII. -- IN THE SECRET-SERVICE.

IN common walks of life to play the spy is an ignoble role; yet the work
has to be done, and there must be men to do it. There always are such
men--nervy fellows who swing themselves into the saddle when their
commander lifts his hand, and ride a mad race, with Death at the horse's
flank every mile of the way. They are the unknown heroes of every war.

It was with a full realization of the dangers confronting him that Will
cantered away from the Union lines, his borrowed uniform under his
arm. As soon as he had put the outposts behind him, he dismounted and
exchanged the blue clothes for the gray. Life on the plains had bronzed
his face. For aught his complexion could tell, the ardent Southern sun
might have kissed it to its present hue. Then, if ever, his face was
his fortune in good part; but there was, too, a stout heart under his
jacket, and the light of confidence in his eyes.

The dawn had come up when he sighted the Confederate outposts. What lay
beyond only time could reveal; but with a last reassuring touch of
the papers in his pocket, he spurred his horse up to the first of the
outlying sentinels. Promptly the customary challenge greeted him:

"Halt! Who goes there?"

"Friend."

"Dismount, friend! Advance and give the countersign!"

"Haven't the countersign," said Will, dropping from his horse, "but I
have important information for General Forrest. Take me to him at once."

"Are you a Confederate soldier?"

"Not exactly. But I have some valuable news about the Yanks, I reckon.
Better let me see the general."

"Thus far," he added to himself, "I have played the part. The
combination of 'Yank' and 'I reckon' ought to establish me as a
promising candidate for Confederate honors."

His story was not only plausible, but plainly and fairly told; but
caution is a child of war, and the sentinel knew his business. The
pseudo-Confederate was disarmed as a necessary preliminary, and marched
between two guards to headquarters, many curious eyes (the camp being
now astir) following the trio.

When Forrest heard the report, he ordered the prisoner brought before
him. One glance at the general's handsome but harsh face, and the young
man steeled his nerves for the encounter. There was no mercy in those
cold, piercing eyes. This first duel of wits was the one to be most
dreaded. Unless confidence were established, his after work must be done
at a disadvantage.

The general's penetrating gaze searched the young face before him for
several seconds.

"Well, sir," said he, "what do you want with me?"

Yankee-like, the reply was another question:

"You sent a man named Nat Golden into the Union lines, did you not,
sir?"

"And if I did, what then?"

"He is an old friend of mine. He tried for the Union camp to verify
information that he had received, but before he started he left certain
papers with me in case he should be captured."

"Ah!" said Forrest, coldly. "And he was captured?"

"Yes, sir; but, as I happen to know, he wasn't hanged, for these weren't
on him."

As he spoke, Will took from his pocket the papers he had obtained from
Golden, and passed them over with the remark, "Golden asked me to take
them to you."

General Forrest was familiar with the hapless Golden's handwriting, and
the documents were manifestly genuine. His suspicion was not aroused.

"These are important papers," said he, when he had run his eye over
them. "They contain valuable information, but we may not be able to
use it, as we are about to change our location. Do you know what these
papers contain?"

"Every word," was the truthful reply. "I studied them, so that in case
they were destroyed you would still have the information from me."

"A wise thing to do," said Forrest, approvingly. "Are you a soldier?"

"I have not as yet joined the army, but I am pretty well acquainted with
this section, and perhaps could serve you as a scout."

"Um!" said the general, looking the now easy-minded young man over. "You
wear our uniform."

"It's Golden's," was the second truthful answer. "He left it with me
when he put on the blue."

"And what is your name?"

"Frederick Williams."

Pretty near the truth. Only a final "s" and a rearrangement of his given
names.

"Very well," said the general, ending the audience; "you may remain in
camp. If I need you, I'll send for you."

He summoned an orderly, and bade him make the volunteer scout
comfortable at the couriers' camp. Will breathed a sigh of relief as he
followed at the orderly's heels. The ordeal was successfully passed. The
rest was action.

Two days went by. In them Will picked up valuable information here and
there, drew maps, and was prepared to depart at the first favorable
opportunity. It was about time, he figured, that General Forrest found
some scouting work for him. That was a passport beyond the lines, and he
promised himself the outposts should see the cleanest pair of heels that
ever left unwelcome society in the rear. But evidently scouting was a
drug in the general's market, for the close of another day found Will
impatiently awaiting orders in the couriers' quarters. This sort of
inactivity was harder on the nerves than more tangible perils, and
he about made up his mind that when he left camp it would be without
orders, but with a hatful of bullets singing after him. And he was quite
sure that his exit lay that way when, strolling past headquarters,
he clapped eyes on the very last person that he expected or wished to
see--Nat Golden.

And Nat was talking to an adjutant-general!

There were just two things to do, knock Golden on the head, or cut and
run. Nat would not betray him knowingly, but unwittingly was certain
to do so the moment General Forrest questioned him. There could be
no choice between the two courses open; it was cut and run, and as
a preliminary Will cut for his tent. First concealing his papers,
he saddled his horse and rode toward the outposts with a serene
countenance.

{illust. caption = "NOW RIDE FOR YOUR LIVES!"}

The same sergeant that greeted him when he entered the lines chanced to
be on duty, and of him Will asked an unimportant question concerning the
outer-flung lines. Yet as he rode along he could not forbear throwing
an apprehensive glance behind. No pursuit was making, and the farthest
picket-line was passed by a good fifty yards. Ahead was a stretch of
timber. Suddenly a dull tattoo of horses' hoofs caught his ear, and he
turned to see a small cavalcade bearing down upon him at a gallop. He
sank the spurs into his horse's side and plunged into the timber. It
was out of the frying-pan into the fire. He ran plump into a half-dozen
Confederate cavalrymen, guarding two Union prisoners. "Men, a Union spy
is escaping!" shouted Will. "Scatter at once, and head him off. I'll
look after your prisoners." There was a ring of authority in the
command; it came at least from a petty officer; and without thought of
challenging it, the cavalrymen hurried right and left in search of the
fugitive. "Come," said Will, in a hurried but smiling whisper to the
dejected pair of Union men. "I'm the spy! There!" cutting the ropes that
bound their wrists. "Now ride for your lives!" Off dashed the trio, and
not a minute too soon. Will's halt had been brief, but it had been of
advantage to his pursuers, who, with Nat Golden at their head, came on
in full cry, not a hundred yards behind. Here was a race with Death at
the horse's flanks. The timber stopped a share of the singing bullets,
but there were plenty that got by the trees, one of them finding
lodgment in the arm of one of the fleeing Union soldiers. Capture meant
certain death for Will; for his companions it meant Andersonville or
Libby, at the worst, which was perhaps as bad as death; but Will would
not leave them, though his horse was fresh, and he could easily have
distanced them. Of course, if it became necessary, he was prepared
to cut their acquaintance, but for the present he made one of the
triplicate targets on which the galloping marksmen were endeavoring
to score a bull's-eye. The edge of the wood was shortly reached, and
beyond--inspiring sight!--lay the outposts of the Union army. The
pickets, at sight of the fugitives, sounded the alarm, and a body of
blue-coats responded. Will would have gladly tarried for the skirmish
that ensued, but he esteemed it his first duty to deliver the papers he
had risked his life to obtain; so, leaving friend and foe to settle the
dispute as best they might, he put for the clump of trees where he had
hidden his uniform, and exchanged it for the gray, that had served its
purpose and was no longer endurable. Under his true colors he rode
into camp. General Forrest almost immediately withdrew from that
neighborhood, and after the atrocious massacre at Fort Pillow, on the
12th of April, left the state. General Smith was recalled, and Will was
transferred, with the commission of guide and scout for the Ninth Kansas
Regiment. The Indians were giving so much trouble along the line of the
old Santa Fe trail that troops were needed to protect the stagecoaches,
emigrants, and caravans traveling that great highway. Like nearly all
our Indian wars, this trouble was precipitated by the injustice of the
white man's government of certain of the native tribes. In 1860 Colonel
A. G. Boone, a worthy grandson of the immortal Daniel, made a treaty with
the Comanches, Kiowas, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes, and at their request he
was made agent. During his wise, just, and humane administration all of
these savage nations were quiet, and held the kindliest feelings toward
the whites. Any one could cross the plains without fear of molestation.
In 1861 a charge of disloyalty was made against Colonel Boone by Judge
Wright, of Indiana, and he succeeded in having the right man removed
from the right place. Russell, Majors & Waddell, recognizing his
influence over the Indians, gave him fourteen hundred acres of land near
Pueblo, Colorado. Colonel Boone moved there, and the place was named
Booneville. Fifty chieftains from the tribes referred to visited Colonel
Boone in the fall of 1862, and implored him to return to them. He told
them that the President had sent him away. They offered to raise money,
by selling their horses, to send him to Washington, to tell the Great
Father what their agent was doing--that he stole their goods and sold
them back again; and they bade the colonel say that there would be
trouble unless some one were put in the dishonest man's place. With the
innate logic for which the Indian is noted, they declared that they had
as much right to steal from passing caravans as the agent had to steal
from them. No notice was taken of so trifling a matter as an injustice
to the Indian. The administration had its hands more than full in the
attempt to right the wrongs of the negro. In the fall of 1863 a caravan
passed along the trail. It was a small one, but the Indians had been
quiet for so long a time that travelers were beginning to lose fear
of them. A band of warriors rode up to the wagon-train and asked for
something to eat. The teamsters thought they would be doing humanity a
service if they killed a redskin, on the ancient principle that "the only
good Indian is a dead one." Accordingly, a friendly, inoffensive Indian
was shot. The bullet that reached his heart touched that of every
warrior in these nations. Every man but one in the wagon-train was
slain, the animals driven off, and the wagons burned. The fires of
discontent that had been smoldering for two years in the red man's
breast now burst forth with volcanic fury. Hundreds of atrocious murders
followed, with wholesale destruction of property. The Ninth Kansas
Regiment, under the command of Colonel Clark, was detailed to protect
the old trail between Fort Lyon and Fort Larned, and as guide and scout
Will felt wholly at home. He knew the Indian and his ways, and had no
fear of him. His fine horse and glittering trappings were an innocent
delight to him; and who will not pardon in him the touch of pride--say
vanity--that thrilled him as he led his regiment down the Arkansas
River? During the summer there were sundry skirmishes with the Indians.
The same old vigilance, learned in earlier days on the frontier, was in
constant demand, and there was many a rough and rapid ride to drive the
hostiles from the trail. Whatever Colonel Clark's men may have had to
complain of, there was no lack of excitement, no dull days, in that
summer. In the autumn the Seventh Kansas was again ordered to the front,
and at the request of its officers Will was detailed for duty with
his old regiment. General Smith's orders were that he should go
to Nashville. Rosecrans was then in command of the Union forces in
Missouri. His army was very small, numbering only about 6,500 men, while
the Confederate General Price was on the point of entering the state
with 20,000. This superiority of numbers was so great that General Smith
received an order countermanding the other, and remained in Missouri,
joining forces with Rosecrans to oppose Price. Rosecrans's entire force
still numbered only 11,000, and he deemed it prudent to concentrate his
army around St. Louis. General Ewing's forces and a portion of General
Smith's command occupied Pilot Knob. On Monday, the 24th of September,
1864, Price advanced against this position, but was repulsed with heavy
losses. An adjacent fort in the neighborhood of Ironton was assaulted,
but the Confederate forces again sustained a severe loss. This fort
held a commanding lookout on Shepard Mountain, which the Confederates
occupied, and their wall-directed fire obliged General Ewing to fall
back to Harrison Station, where he made a stand, and some sharp fighting
followed. General Ewing again fell back, and succeeded in reaching
General McNeill, at Rolla, with the main body of his troops. This was
Will's first serious battle, and it so chanced that he found himself
opposed at one point by a body of Missouri troops numbering many of the
men who had been his father's enemies and persecutors nine years before.
In the heat of the conflict he recognized more than one of them, and
with the recognition came the memory of his boyhood's vow to avenge his
father's death. Three of those men fell in that battle; and whether or
not it was he who laid them low, from that day on he accounted himself
freed of his melancholy obligation. After several hard-fought battles,
Price withdrew from Missouri with the remnant of his command--seven
thousand where there had been twenty. During this campaign Will received
honorable mention "for most conspicuous bravery and valuable service
upon the field," and he was shortly brought into favorable notice in many
quarters. The worth of the tried veterans was known, but none of the
older men was in more demand than Will. His was seemingly a charmed
life. Often was he detailed to bear dispatches across the battlefield,
and though horses were shot under him--riddled by bullets or torn by
shells--he himself went scathless. During this campaign, too, he ran
across his old friend of the plains, Wild Bill. Stopping at a farm-house
one day to obtain a meal, he was not a little surprised to hear the
salutation: "Well, Billy, my boy, how are you?" He looked around to see
a hand outstretched from a coat-sleeve of Confederate gray, and as he
knew Wild Bill to be a stanch Unionist, he surmised that he was engaged
upon an enterprise similar to his own. There was an exchange of chaffing
about gray uniforms and blue, but more serious talk followed. "Take
these papers, Billy," said Wild Bill, passing over a package. "Take 'em
to General McNeill, and tell him I'm picking up too much good news to
keep away from the Confederate camp." "Don't take too many chances,"
cautioned Will, well knowing that the only chances the other would not
take would be the sort that were not visible. Colonel Hickok, to give
him his real name, replied, with a laugh: "Practice what you preach, my
son. Your neck is of more value than mine. You have a future, but mine
is mostly past. I'm getting old." At this point the good woman of
the house punctuated the colloquy with a savory meal, which the pair
discussed with good appetite and easy conscience, in spite of their
hostess's refusal to take pay from Confederate soldiers. "As long as I
have a crust in the house," said she, "you boys are welcome to it." But
the pretended Confederates paid her for her kindness in better currency
than she was used to. They withheld information concerning a proposed
visit of her husband and son, of which, during one spell of loquacity,
she acquainted them. The bread she cast upon the waters returned to her
speedily. The two friends parted company, Will returning to the Union
lines, and Colonel Hickok to the opposing camp. A few days later, when
the Confederate forces were closing up around the Union lines, and a
battle was at hand, two horsemen were seen to dart out of the hostile
camp and ride at full speed for the Northern lines. For a space
the audacity of the escape seemed to paralyze the Confederates; but
presently the bullets followed thick and fast, and one of the saddles
was empty before the rescue party--of which Will was one--got fairly
under way. As the survivor drew near, Will shouted: "It's Wild Bill, the
Union scout." A cheer greeted the intrepid Colonel Hickok, and he rode
into camp surrounded by a party of admirers. The information he brought
proved of great value in the battle of Pilot Knob (already referred
to), which almost immediately followed. CHAPTER XIV. A RESCUE AND A
BETROTHAL. AFTER the battle of Pilot Knob Will was assigned, through the
influence of General Polk, to special service at military headquarters
in St. Louis. Mrs. Polk had been one of mother's school friends, and the
two had maintained a correspondence up to the time of mother's death.
As soon as Mrs. Polk learned that the son of her old friend was in the
Union army, she interested herself in obtaining a good position for him.
But desk-work is not a Pony Express rush, and Will found the St. Louis
detail about as much to his taste as clerking in a dry-goods store.
His new duties naturally became intolerable, lacking the excitement and
danger-scent which alone made his life worth while to him. One event,
however, relieved the dead-weight monotony of his existence; he met
Louise Frederici, the girl who became his wife. The courtship has
been written far and wide with blood-and-thunder pen, attended by
lariat-throwing and runaway steeds. In reality it was a romantic affair.
More than once, while out for a morning canter, Will had remarked a
young woman of attractive face and figure, who sat her horse with the
grace of Diana Vernon. Now, few things catch Will's eye more quickly
than fine horsemanship. He desired to establish an acquaintance with the
young lady, but as none of his friends knew her, he found it impossible.
At length a chance came. Her bridle-rein broke one morning; there was a
runaway, a rescue, and then acquaintance was easy. From war to love, or
from love to war, is but a step, and Will lost no time in taking it.
He was somewhat better than an apprentice to Dan Cupid. If the reader
remembers, he went to school with Steve Gobel. True, his opportunities
to enjoy feminine society had not been many, which; perhaps, accounts
for the promptness with which he embraced them when they did arise.
He became the accepted suitor of Miss Louise Frederici before the war
closed and his regiment was mustered out. The spring of 1865 found him
not yet twenty, and he was sensible of the fact that before he could
dance at his own wedding he must place his worldly affairs upon a surer
financial basis than falls to the lot of a soldier; so, much as he would
have enjoyed remaining in St. Louis, fortune pointed to wider fields,
and he set forth in search of remunerative and congenial employment.
First, there was the visit home, where the warmest of welcomes awaited
him. During his absence the second sister, Eliza, had married a Mr.
Myers, but the rest of us were at the old place, and the eagerness with
which we awaited Will's home-coming was stimulated by the hope that
he would remain and take charge of the estate. Before we broached this
subject, however, he informed us of his engagement to Miss Frederici,
which, far from awakening jealousy, aroused our delight, Julia voicing
the sentiment of the family in the comment: "When you're married, Will,
you will have to stay at home." This led to the matter of his remaining
with us to manage the estate--and to the upsetting of our plans. The pay
of a soldier in the war was next to nothing, and as Will had been unable
to put any money by, he took the first chance that offered to better his
fortunes. This happened to be a job of driving horses from Leavenworth
to Fort Kearny, and almost the first man he met after reaching the fort
was an old plains friend, Bill Trotter. "You're just the chap I've been
looking for," said Trotter, when he learned that Will desired regular
work. "I'm division station agent here, but stage-driving is dangerous
work, as the route is infested with Indians and outlaws. Several drivers
have been held up and killed lately, so it's not a very enticing job,
but the pay's good, and you know the country. If any one can take the
stage through, you can. Do you want the job?" When a man is in love and
the wedding-day has been dreamed of, if not set, life takes on an added
sweetness, and to stake it against the marksmanship of Indian or outlaw
is not, perhaps, the best use to which it may be put. Will had come
safely through so many perils that it seemed folly to thrust his head
into another batch of them, and thinking of Louise and the coming
wedding-day, his first thought was no. But it was the old story, and
there was Trotter at his elbow expressing confidence in his ability as a
frontiersman--an opinion Will fully shared, for a man knows what he can
do. The pay was good, and the sooner earned the sooner would the wedding
be, and Trotter received the answer he expected. The stage line was
another of the Western enterprises projected by Russell, Majors &
Waddell. When gold was discovered on Pike's Peak there was no method
of traversing the great Western plain except by plodding ox-team,
mule-pack, or stagecoach. A semi-monthly stage line ran from St.
Joseph to Salt 

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