An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill Part 10

"Who are you?" he asked, walking over to me. "The people on board don't give you a very good recommendation."

"Kindly remember," I replied, "that we have had a little war for the past five years on the border. These people were on one side and I on the other, and it is natural that they shouldn't think very highly of me."

My argument was not convincing. "I am going to take my daughter home again," said my father-in-law, and started toward the stateroom.

I besought him to leave the decision to her, and for the next ten minutes I pleaded my case with all the eloquence I could command. I was talking against odds, for my wife, as well as her parents' friends, were all ardent Southerners, and I am proud to say that after fifty years of married life, she is still as strongly "Secesh" as ever. But when I put the case to her she said gamely that she had taken me for better or for worse and intended to stick to me.

She was in tears when she said good-by to her parents and friends, and still in tears after they had left. I tried to comfort her with a.s.surances that when we came among Northern people I would not be regarded as such a desperate character, but my consolation was of little avail. At dinner the hostile stares that were bent on me from our neighbors at table did not serve to rea.s.sure her. It was some comfort to me afterward when the captain sent for me and told me that he knew me, that my Uncle Elijah was his old-time friend, and one of the most extensive s.h.i.+ppers on the steamboat line. "It is shameful the way these people are treating you," he said, "but let it pa.s.s, and when we get to Independence everything will be all right."

But everything was not all right. In the evening, when I led my wife out on the floor of the cabin, where the pa.s.sengers were dancing, every dancer immediately walked off the floor, the men scowling and the women with their noses in the air. All that night my wife wept while I walked the floor.

At daybreak, when we stopped for wood, I heard shots and shouting.

Walking out on deck, I saw the freed negroes who composed the crew scrambling back on board. The steamboat was backing out in the stream.

Later I learned that my fellow pa.s.sengers had wired up the river that I was on board, and an armed party had ridden down to "get" me.

I quickly returned to the stateroom, and, diving into my trunk, took out and buckled on a brace of revolvers which had done excellent service in times past. This action promptly confirmed my wife's suspicions. She was now certain that I was the bandit I had been accused of being. I had no time to reason with her now. Throwing my coat back, so that I rested my hands on the b.u.t.ts of my revolvers, I strolled out through the crowd.

One or two men who had been doing a great deal of loud talking a few minutes past backed away, as I walked past and looked them squarely in the eyes. Nothing more was said, and soon I reached the steward's office, unmolested. Here I found a number of men dressed in blue uniforms. They told me they were discharged members of the Eighth Indiana Volunteers. They were traveling to Kansas, steerage, saving their money so they might have it to invest in homes when they reached their destination. They had all heard of me, and now proposed to arm and defend me should there be any further hostile demonstrations. I gladly welcomed their support, more for my wife's sake than for my own.

"My wife," I said, "firmly believes that I am an outlaw."

"You can't blame her," said the spokesman of the party, "after what has happened. But wait till she gets among Union people and she will learn her mistake. We know your history, and of your recent services to General Sherman. We know that old 'Pap' Sherman wouldn't have an outlaw in his service. If you had seen some of the interviews he has given out about your wife's father and his friends there would have been trouble at the start."

My new-found friends did not do things by halves. In order to be able to give a ball in the cabin they exchanged their steerage tickets for first-cla.s.s pa.s.sage. That night the ball was given, with my wife and myself as the guests of honor.

The Independence crowd, observing the preparations for the ball, demanded that the captain stop at the first town and let them off. They saw that the tide had turned, and were apprehensive of reprisals. The captain told them that if they should behave like ladies and gentlemen all would be well.

That night they stood outside looking in while my wife, now quite rea.s.sured, was introduced to the ladies and gentlemen from Indiana, and danced till she was weary.

We looked for trouble when we reached Independence the next day. There was a bigger crowd than usual on the levee, but when it was seen that my Yankee friends had their Spencer carbines with them all was quiet.

As we pulled out the old captain called me outside.

"Cody, it is all over now," he said. "But don't you think you were the only restless man on board. When I backed out into the river the other night I had to leave four of my best deckhands either dead or wounded on the bank. I will never forget the way you walked out through the crowd with that pair of guns in your hand. I have heard of the execution these weapons can do when they get in action."

When we stopped at Kansas City I telegraphed to Leavenworth that we were coming. As the boat approached the Leavenworth levee my soldier friends were out on deck in their dress uniforms, and I stood on the deck, my bride on my arm. Soon we heard the music of the Fort Leavenworth band and the town band, and crowds of citizens were on the wharf as the boat tied up.

The commandant of the fort, D.R. Anthony, the Mayor of Leavenworth, my sisters, and hundreds of my friends came rus.h.i.+ng aboard the boat to greet us. That night we were given a big banquet to which my soldier chums and their wives were invited. My wife had a glorious time. After it was all over, she put her arms about my neck and cried:

"w.i.l.l.y, I don't believe you are an outlaw at all!"

I had reluctantly promised my wife that I would abandon the Plains. It was necessary to make a living, so I rented a hotel in Salt Creek Valley, the same hotel my mother had formerly conducted, and set up as a landlord.

It was a typical frontier hotel, patronized by people going to and from the Plains, and it took considerable tact and diplomacy to conduct it successfully. I called the place "The Golden-Rule House," and tried to conduct it on that principle. I seemed to have the qualifications necessary, but for a man who had lived my kind of life it proved a tame employment. I found myself sighing once more for the freedom of the Plains. Incidentally I felt sure I could make money as a plainsman, and, now that I had a wife to support, money had become a very important consideration.

I sold out the Golden-Rule House and set out alone for Saline, Kansas, which was then at the end of construction of the Kansas Pacific Railway. On my way I stopped at Junction City, were I again met my old friend, Wild Bill, who was scouting for the Government, with headquarters at Fort Ellsworth, afterward called Fort Harker. He told me more scouts were needed at the Post, and I accompanied him to the fort, where I had no difficulty in securing employment.

During the winter of 1866-67 I scouted between Fort Ellsworth and Fort Fletcher. I was at Fort Fletcher in the spring of 1867 when General Custer came out to accompany General Hanc.o.c.k on an Indian expedition. I remained here till the post was flooded by a great rise of Big Creek, on which it was located. The water overflowed the fortifications, rendering the place unfit for further occupancy, and it was abandoned by the Government. The troops were removed to Fort Hays, a new post, located farther west, on the south fork of Big Creek. It was while I was at Fort Hays that I had my first ride with the das.h.i.+ng Custer. He had come up from Ellsworth with an escort of only ten men, and wanted a guide to pilot him to Fort Larned, sixty-five miles distant.

When Custer learned that I was at the Post he asked that I be a.s.signed to duty with him. I reported to him at daylight the next day--none too early, as Custer, with his staff and orderlies, was already in the saddle. When I was introduced to Custer he glanced disapprovingly at the mule I was riding.

"I am glad to meet you, Cody," he said. "General Sherman has told me about you. But I am in a hurry, and I am sorry to see you riding that mule."

"General," I returned, "that is one of the best horses at the fort."

"It isn't a horse at all," he said, "but if it's the best you've got we shall have to start."

We rode side by side as we left the fort. My mule had a fast walk, which kept the general's horse most of the time in a half-trot.

His animal was a fine Kentucky thoroughbred, but for the kind of work at hand I had full confidence in my mount. Whenever Custer was not looking I slyly spurred the mule ahead, and when he would start forward I would rein him in and pat him by way of restraint, bidding him not to be too fractious, as we hadn't yet reached the sandhills. In this way I set a good lively pace--something like nine miles an hour--all morning.

At Smoky Hill River we rested our animals. Then the general, who was impatient to be off, ordered a fresh start. I told him we had still forty miles of sandhills to cross, and advised an easier gait.

"I have no time to waste on the road," he said. "I want to push right ahead."

Push right ahead we did. I continued quietly spurring my mule and then counseling the brute to take it easy. Presently I noticed that the escort was stringing out far behind, as their horses became winded with the hard pace through the sand. Custer, looking back, noticed the same thing.

"I think we are setting too fast a pace for them, Cody," he said, but when I replied that I thought this was merely the usual pace for my mule and that I supposed he was in a hurry he made no further comment.

Several times during the next forty miles we had to stop to wait for the escort to close up. Their horses, sweating and panting, had reached almost the limit of their endurance. I continued patting my animal and ordering him to quiet down, and Custer at length said:

"You seem to be putting it over me a little today."

When we reached a high ridge overlooking p.a.w.nee Fork we again waited for our lagging escort. As we waited I said:

"If you want to send a dispatch to the officer in command at Fort Larned, I will be pleased to take it down for you. You can follow this ridge till you come to the creek and then follow the valley right down to the fort."

Custer swung around to the captain, who had just ridden up, and repeated to him my instructions as to how to reach the fort. "I shall ride ahead with Cody," he added. "Now, Cody, I am ready for you and that mouse-colored mule."

The pace I set for General Custer from that time forward was "some going." When we rode up to the quarters of Captain Daingerfield Parker, commandant of the post, General Custer dismounted, and his horse was led off to the stables by an orderly, while I went to the scouts'

quarters. I was personally sure that my mule was well cared for, and he was fresh as a daisy the next morning.

After an early breakfast I groomed and saddled my mule, and, riding down to the general's quarters, waited for him to appear. I saluted as he came out, and said that if he had any further orders I was ready to carry them out.

"I am not feeling very pleasant this morning, Cody," he said. "My horse died during the night."

I said I was very sorry his animal got into too fast a cla.s.s the day before.

"Well," he replied, "hereafter I will have nothing to say against a mule. We will meet again on the Plains. I shall try to have you detailed as my guide, and then we will have time to talk over that race."

A few days after my return to Fort Hays the Indians made a raid on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, killing five or six men and running off a hundred or more horses and mules. The news was brought to the commanding officer, who immediately ordered Major Arms, of the Tenth Cavalry, to go in pursuit of the raiders. The Tenth Cavalry was a negro regiment. Arms took a company, with one mountain howitzer, and I was sent along as scout.

On the second day out we discovered a large party of Indians on the opposite side of the Saline River, and about a mile distant. The party was charging down on us and there was no time to lose. Arms placed his howitzer on a little knoll, limbered it up, and left twenty men to guard it. Then, with the rest of the command, he crossed the river to meet the redskins.

Just as he had got his men across the stream we heard a terrific shouting. Looking back toward the knoll where the gun had been left, we saw our negro gun-guard flying toward us, pursued by more than a hundred Indians. More Indians were dancing about the gun, although they had not the slightest notion what to do with it.

Arms turned back with his command and drove the redskins from their useless prize. The men dismounted and took up a position there.

A very lively fight followed. Five or six men, including Major Arms, were wounded, and a number of the horses were shot. As the fight proceeded, the enemy seemed to become steadily more numerous. It was apparent that reinforcements were arriving from some large party in the rear.