Buffalo Bill and the Overland Trail

Edwin L. Sabin

Buffalo Bill and the Overland Trail

Sharp Ink Publishing

2024

Contact: [email protected]

ISBN 978-80-282-0781-6

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

ILLUSTRATIONS

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

I TALL BULL SIGNALS: ENEMIES!

II THE HERO OF THE MULE FORT

III WITH THE WAGON TRAIN

IV VISITING BILLY CODY

V DAVY GOES ON HERD

VI DAVY HAS AN ADVENTURE

VII DAVY CHANGES JOBS

VIII THE GOLD FEVER

IX THE HEE-HAW EXPRESS

X PIKE’S PEAK OR BUST!

XI SOME HALTS BY THE WAY

XII PERILS FOR THE HEE-HAWS

XIII THE CHERRY CREEK DIGGIN’S

XIV DAVY SIGNS AS EXTRA

XV FREIGHTING ACROSS THE PLAINS

XVI YANK RAISES TROUBLE

XVII DAVY THE BULL WHACKER

XVIII BILLY CODY TURNS UP AGAIN

XIX DAVY MAKES ANOTHER CHANGE

XX FAST TIME TO CALIFORNIA

XXI PONY EXPRESS BILL

XXII CARRYING THE GREAT NEWS

XXIII A BRUSH ON THE OVERLAND STAGE

XXIV BUFFALO BILL IS CHAMPION

FOREWORD

Table of Contents

History is the record made by men and women; so the story of the western plains is the story of Buffalo Bill and of those other hard workers who with their deeds and even with their lives bought the great country for the use of us to-day.

The half of what Buffalo Bill did, in the days of the Overland Trail, has never been told, and of course cannot be told in one short book. He began very young, before the days of the Overland Stage; and he was needed long after the railroad had followed the stage. The days when the Great Plains were being opened to civilized people required brave men and boys—yes, and brave women and girls, too. There was glory enough for all. Everything related in this book happened to Buffalo Bill, or to those persons who shared in his dangers and his deeds. And while he may not remember the other boy, Dave Scott, whom he inspired to be brave also, he will be glad to know that he helped Davy to be a man.

That is one great reward in life: to inspire and encourage others.

Edwin L. Sabin

San Diego, California

, June 1, 1914

ILLUSTRATIONS

Table of Contents

WILLIAM FEDERICK CODY

BUFFALO BILL

From a photograph taken in 1871, in the possession of Clarence S. Paine, Esq.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

Table of Contents

WILLIAM FREDERICK CODY

BUFFALO BILL

Celebrated American plains-day express rider, hunter, guide and army scout, who before he was fourteen years of age had won credit for man’s pluck and shrewdness. In his youth a dutiful and helpful son; in his later years an exhibitor of Wild West scenes, with which he has toured the world. Early known as Will, Little Billy, Pony Express Bill, Scout Bill Cody; by the Indians termed Pa-he-haska (Long Hair); but, the globe around, famed as Buffalo Bill.

Born on the family farm near LeClaire, Scott County, Eastern Iowa, February 26, 1845.

Father: Isaac Cody. Mother: Mary Ann Cody.

Childhood spent in Scott County, Iowa: at LeClaire and at Walnut Grove.

When eight years old, in 1853, is removed with the family overland to Kansas.

In the Salt Creek Valley, near the Kickapoo Indian reservation and Fort Leavenworth, Eastern Kansas, Mr. Cody takes up a claim and is Indian trader.

Young William is reared among the Free State troubles of 1853–1861, when the slave men and the anti-slave men strove against one another to obtain possession of Kansas. Mr. Cody, the father, was of the Free State party.

Aged 10, summer of 1855, Billy engages at $25 a month to herd cattle, just outside of Leavenworth, for the freighting firm of Russell & Majors. Gives the money, $50, to his mother.

Is instructed at home by Miss Jennie Lyons, the family teacher; attends district school.

Aged 11, summer of 1856, makes his first trip into the plains, as herder for a Russell, Majors & Waddell bull train.

Continues his cattle herding; and aged 12, in May, 1857, makes another trip across the plains, as herder for the cattle with a Russell, Majors & Waddell outfit bound for Salt Lake, Utah. Has his first Indian fight.

The same summer of 1857, is extra man with another Russell, Majors & Waddell wagon train for Utah. Returning, has his second Indian fight.

Arrives home again, summer of 1858. Becomes assistant wagon master with a fourth train, for Fort Laramie.

Fall of 1858, aged 13, joins a company of trappers out of Fort Laramie.

Winter and spring of 1859, attends school again, to please his mother.

To the Pike’s Peak country for gold, 1859.

Returns home to see his mother; and then spends winter of 1859–1860 trapping beaver in central Kansas.

Rides Pony Express, 1860–1861. The youngest rider on the line.

Ranger, dispatch bearer, and scout in the Union service, in Kansas, Missouri and the Southwest, 1861–1863.

Enlisted in Seventh Kansas Volunteer Infantry, 1864, and serves with it until close of the war.

Stage driver between Kearney, Nebraska, and Plum Creek, 35 miles west, 1865–1866.

Marries, March 6, 1866, Miss Louisa Frederici of St. Louis.

Proprietor of Golden Rule House hotel at his old home in Salt Creek Valley, Kansas, 1866.

Government scout at Fort Ellsworth, Fort Fletcher, and Fort Hays, Kansas, 1866–1867.

With William Rose, a construction contractor, promotes the town-site of Rome, near Fort Hays, 1867. Rome is eclipsed by Hayes City, its rival.

Earns title Buffalo Bill by supplying the work gang of the Kansas Pacific Railroad with buffalo, 1867–1868. In 18 months kills 4,280 buffalo.

Becomes Government scout with headquarters at Fort Larned, 1868. Performs some remarkable endurance rides between the posts on the Arkansas and those on the Kansas Pacific line. Once covers 355 miles, in 58 hours of riding by day and by night.

Appointed by General Sheridan guide and chief scout for the Fifth Cavalry, 1868.

Serves with the Fifth Cavalry on various expeditions, 1868–1872. Also acts as guide for numerous sportsmen parties.

Temporary justice of the peace at Fort McPherson, Nebraska, 1871.

Guide for the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, on a celebrated hunting tour in the West, 1872.

Guide for the Third Cavalry, at Fort McPherson, 1872. Acts as guide for the Earl of Dunraven, and other distinguished sportsmen.

Elected on the Democratic ticket to the Nebraska Legislature, 1872.

Resigns from the Legislature and in the winter of 1872–1873 stars, with Texas Jack, as an actor in The Scouts of the Plains, a melodrama by Ned Buntline.

Organizes the Buffalo Bill Combination, with Texas Jack and Wild Bill, and plays melodrama in the Eastern cities, 1873–1874.

During 1874–1876 continues to be scout, guide and actor, according to the season.

Takes the field again in earnest as scout for the Fifth Cavalry, against the Sioux, spring of 1876. Fights his noted duel with Chief Yellow Hand.

In partnership with Major Frank North, of the Pawnee Government Scouts, establishes a cattle ranch near North Platte, Nebraska, 1877.

Seasons of 1876–1877–1878 resumes his theatrical tours in Western melodrama, portraying the late Sioux War and the incidents of the Mountain Meadow Massacre (1857).

Takes up residence at North Platte, Nebraska, spring of 1878. Continues to hunt, ranch, and act; writes his autobiography and his own plays.

In 1883 organizes his justly celebrated Wild West combination, with which for three years he tours the United States. In 1886 he takes it to England, and in 1889 to the Continent.

In 1888 appointed brigadier general of the National Guard of Nebraska.

In 1890 he again serves as chief scout, under General Nelson A. Miles, against the Sioux.

Since then, the Wild West Show, known also as the Congress of Rough Riders of the World, has continued its career as a spectacle and an education. Colonel Cody (still known as Buffalo Bill) is ranked as one of America’s leading characters in public life. He has shown what a boy can do to win honor and success, even if he starts in as only a cattle-herder, with little schooling and no money.

BUFFALO BILL AND THE

OVERLAND TRAIL

I

TALL BULL SIGNALS: ENEMIES!

Table of Contents

Since early dawn forty Indians and one little red-headed white boy had been riding amidst the yellow gullies and green table-lands of western Nebraska, about where the North Platte and the South Platte Rivers come together. The most of these Indians were Cheyennes; the others were a few Arapahoes and two or three Sioux. The name of the little red-headed boy was David Scott.

He was guarded by the two squaws who had been brought along to work for the thirty-eight men. They worked for the men, little Dave worked for them; and frequently they struck him, and told him that when the Cheyenne village was reached again he would be burnt.

In the bright sunshine, amidst the great expanse of open, uninhabited country, the Indian column, riding with its scouts out, made a gallant sight. The ponies, bay, dun, black, white, spotted, were adorned with paint, gay streamers and jingly pendants. The men were bareheaded and bare bodied; on this warm day of June they had thrown off their robes and blankets. But what they lacked in clothing, they supplied in decoration.

Down the parting of the smoothly-combed black hair was run vermilion; vermilion and ochre and blue and white and black streaked coppery forehead, high cheek-bones and firm chin, and lay lavishly over brawny chest and sinewy arms. At the parting of the braids were stuck feathers—common feathers for the braves, tipped eagle feathers for the chiefs. The long braids themselves were wrapped in otter-skin and red flannel. From ears hung copper and brass and silver pendants. Upon wrists and upper arms were broad bracelets and armlets of copper. Upon feet were beaded moccasins worked in tribal designs. The fashion of the paint and the style of the moccasins it was which said that these riders were Cheyennes.

The column had no household baggage and no children (except little Dave) and no dogs; and it had no women other than just the two. The men were painted and although they rode bareheaded, from the saddle-horn of many tossed crested, feathered bonnets with long tails. These were war-bonnets. All the bows were short, thick bows. These were war-bows. All the arrows in the full quivers were barbed arrows. Hunting arrows were smooth. The lances were tufted and showy. The shields, slung to left arm, were the thick, boastfully painted war shields. The ponies were picked ponies; war ponies. Yes, anybody with half an eye could have read that this was a war party, not a hunting party or a village on the move.

Davy could have proven it. Wasn’t he here, riding between two mean squaws? And look at the plunder, from white people—some of it from his own uncle and aunt, all of it from the whoa-haw trains, as the Indians had named the ox-wagon columns of the emigrants and freighters.

Ever since, two weeks back, these Cheyennes had so suddenly out-charged upon his uncle’s wagon and another, strayed from the main column, they had been looking for more whoa-haws. This year, 1858, and the preceding half dozen years had been fine ones for Indians in search of plunder. Thousands of white people were crossing the plains, between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains; their big canvas-covered wagons contained curious and valuable things, as well as women and children. They were drawn by cattle and horses or mules, and behind followed large bands of other cattle and horses and mules. Sometimes these whoa-haw people fought stoutly, sometimes they had no chance to fight—as had been the case with little Dave’s uncle.

Tall Bull was the young chief in charge of the squad that had attacked the two wagons. Now Tall Bull was one of the scouts riding on the flanks and ahead of the war party, so as to spy out the country. In his two weeks with the Cheyennes Dave had learned them well. They were no fools. They rode cunningly. They were disciplined. While they kept to the low country their scouts skirted the edges of the higher country, in order to see far. By wave of blanket or movement of horse these keen-eyed scouts could signal back for more than a mile, and every Indian in the column could read the signs. Then the head chief, Cut Nose, would grunt an order, and his young men would obey.

The march was threading the bottom of a bushy ravine. Cut Nose, head chief, led; Bear-Who-Walks and Lame Buffalo, sub-chiefs, rode with him. Behind filed the long column. In the rear of all trailed the two squaws, guarding the miserable Davy.

Suddenly adown the column travelled, in one great writhe, a commotion. A scout, to the right, ahead, was signalling. He was Tall Bull. His figure, of painted self and mottled pony, was plainly outlined just at the juncture of brushy rim and sky. Now he had dismounted, and had crept forward, half stooped, as if the better to see, the less to be seen. But back he scurried, more under cover of the ravine edge; standing he snatched his buffalo robe from about his waist and swung it with the gesture that meant Somebody in sight!

He sprang to his spotted pony, and down he came, riding in a slow zigzag and making little circles, too. The slow zigzag meant No hurry and the little circles meant Not many strangers. And he signed with his hand.

However, large party or small party, the news was very welcome. All the other scouts sped to see what Tall Bull had seen. From side ravines out rushed at gallop the little exploring detachments. ’Twas astonishing how fast the news spread. The two squaws jabbered eagerly; and the aides of Cut Nose went galloping to reconnoitre.

As for Cut Nose himself, he halted, and thereby halted the column, while he composedly sat to receive reports. The rear gradually pressed forward to hear, and the squaws strained their ears. Davy could not understand, but this is what was said, by sign and word, when Tall Bull had arrived:

What is it?

White men, on horses.

How many?

Three.

How far?

A short pony ride.

What are they doing?

Travelling.

Any baggage?

No.

Are they armed?

Yes. Guns.

Cut Nose grunted. Now Lame Buffalo, sub-chief, came scouring back. He had seen the three men. It was as Tall Bull had said. Two of the men were large, one was small. They were riding mules, and were dressed in whoa-haw clothes, so they were not trappers or hunters, but probably belonged to that whoa-haw train of many men that the column had sighted travelling east. They were riding as if they wished to catch it. But they could be reached easily, said Lame Buffalo, his black eyes blazing. Blazed the black eyes of all; and fiercest were the snappy black eyes of the two squaws. The three whoa-haws could be reached easily by following up a side ravine that would lead out almost within bow-shot. Then the white men would be cut off in the midst of a flat open place where they could not hide.

Good, grunted Cut Nose; and he issued short, rapid orders. Little Dave had not understood the words but he could understand the gestures and signs that made up more than half the talk; and he could understand the bustle that followed. The Cheyennes, the few Arapahoes and Sioux, were preparing themselves for battle.

Blankets and robes were thrown looser. Leggings were kicked off, to leave the limbs still freer. The rawhide loops by which the riders might hang to the far side of their ponies were hastily tested. Quivers were jerked into more convenient position. Arrows were loosened in them. The unstrung bows were strung. The two warriors who had old guns freshened the priming and readjusted the caps upon the nipples. Several of the younger warriors hurriedly slashed face and chest anew with paint. War bonnets were set upon heads; their feathered tails fell nearly to the ground.

With a single eagle glance adown his force Cut Nose, raising his hand as signal, dashed away up the ravine. After him dashed all his array, even to the two squaws and little Dave.

Braids tossed, hoofs thudded, war bonnets streamed, and every painted rider leaned forward, avid for the exit and the attack. Dave’s heart beat high. He was afraid for the white men. The Cheyennes were so many, so eager, and so fierce.

The scouts before kept signing that all was well. The white men evidently were riding unconscious of a foe close at hand. At the side ravine Cut Nose darted in. Its farther end was closed by brush and low plum trees, which rose to fringe the plateau above. A scout was here, peering, watching the field. He was Yellow Hand, son of Cut Nose. He signalled Come! Quick! Enemy here!

Thus urged, up the slope galloped Cut Nose, Lame Buffalo, Bear-Who-Walks; galloped all. At the top, emerging, Cut Nose flung high his hand, shaking his war bow. Over the top after him poured the racing mass, savage in paint and cloth and feather and decorated weapon. Swept onward with them rode little Dave, jostled between the two squaws, who whipped his pony as often as they whipped their own.

The halloo of Cut Nose rose vibrant.

Hi-yi-yi-yi-yi; yip yip yip! he whooped, exultant and threatening.

Hi-yi-yi-yi-yi; yip yip yip! yelped every rider, the squaws chiming in more piercingly than any others.

Out from the plum tree grove and into the plateau they had burst, and went charging furiously.

The sun was shining bright, for the day was glorious June. The plateau lay bare, save for the grass dried by weather and the few clumps of sage and greasewood. And there they were, the three whites, stopped short, staring and for the moment uncertain what to do.

They were alone, between bending blue sky and wide plain; a little trio in the midst of a vast expanse. As the scouts had claimed, no shelter was near. At the other edge of the plateau flowed the North Platte River, but too distant to be reached now.

Louder pealed the whoops of the warriors, louder shrieked the shrill voices of the squaws, as onward charged, headlong, the wild company, to ride over the white dogs and snatch scalp and weapon.

Almost within gunshot swept forward the attack. Already had spoken, recklessly, with Bang! Bang! the guns in the hands of the two excited warriors. Were the white men going to run, or stand? They were going to stand, for they had vaulted to ground. One of them was small enough to be a boy. Three puffs of blue smoke jetted from them. The leading Indians ducked low—but the shots had not been for them! Look! Down had dropped the three mules, to lie kicking and struggling.

The white men (yes, one was a boy!) bent over them, stoutly dragging and shoving; and next, in behind the bodies they had crouched. Only the tops of their broad hats and their shoulders could be described, and their gun muzzles projecting before. This, then, was their fort: the three dead mules arranged in triangle! Evidently the two men, and perhaps the boy, had fought Indians before. Davy felt like cheering; but from the forty throats rang a great shout of rage and menace. The squaws had halted, with Dave, to watch; unchecked and unafraid the warriors forged on, straight for the little barricade.

Kill! Kill! shrieked the squaws, glaring.

The warriors were shooting in earnest; arrows flew, the two guns again belched. The charge seemed almost upon the fort, when from it puffed the jets of smoke. Bang! Bang! Bang! drifted dully the reports; and with scarce an interval followed other jets, rapid and sharp: Bang! Bang-bang! Bang! Bang!

From the painted, parted lips of the two squaws issued a wilder, different note, and little Dave again felt like cheering; for from their saddles had lurched three of the Cheyennes, and a pony also had pitched in a heap.

Cut Nose swerved; he and every warrior flung themselves to the pony side opposite the fort, and parting, the column split as if the fort were a wedge. In two wings they went scouring right and left of it. Around and around the mule-body triangle they rode, at top speed, in a great double circle, plying their bows.

Their arrows streamed in a continuous shower, pelting the fort. They struck, quivering, in the mule bodies and in the ground. Now from every savage throat rang another shout—high, derisive. On their ponies the squaws capered, and shook their blanket ends. An arrow was quivering in a new spot—the shoulder of one of the whites. Now Davy felt like sobbing. But it was not in the shoulder of the boy; it was in the shoulder of the man beyond him, and facing the other way. However, that was bad enough.

Still, the man was not disabled; not he. His gun remain levelled, and neither the boy nor the other man paid any attention to him. The three occasionally shot, but lying low against their ponies’ sides the Indians, galloping fast, were hard to hit.

Cut Nose raised his hand again, and from the circle he veered outward. The circle instantly scattered, and after their chief galloped every warrior.

Forward hammered the two squaws, with vengeful look at little Dave which bade him not to lag. The warriors had gathered in a group, out of gunshot from the fort. Cut Nose was furious. Indians hate to lose warriors; and there were three, and a pony, stretched upon the plain.

Are you all old women? scolded Chief Cut Nose, while Dave tried to guess at what was being shouted, and his two guardians pressed to the edge of the circle. You let three whites, one of whom is very little, beat us? The dogs will bark at us when we go back and the squaws will whip us through the village. Everybody at home will laugh. They will say: ‘These are not Cheyennes. They are sick Osages! They are afraid to take a scalp, and when an enemy points a stick at them, they run!’ Bah! Am I a chief, and are you warriors, or are we all ghosts?

Panting, the warriors listened. They murmured and shrugged, as the words stung.

Those whites shoot very straight. The little one shoots the straightest of any. They must have many guns. They shoot once and without loading they shoot again, argued Lame Buffalo.

"You talk