Buffalo Bill’s Big Surprise OR, The Biggest Stampede on Record

BY

Colonel Prentiss Ingraham

Author of the celebrated “Buffalo Bill” stories published in the Border Stories. For other titles see catalogue.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION

PUBLISHERS

79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

Copyright, 1914

By STREET & SMITH

Buffalo Bill’s Big Surprise

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.

IN APPRECIATION OF WILLIAM F. CODY (BUFFALO BILL).

It is now some generations since Josh Billings, Ned Buntline, and Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, intimate friends of Colonel William F. Cody, used to forgather in the office of Francis S. Smith, then proprietor of the New York Weekly. It was a dingy little office on Rose Street, New York, but the breath of the great outdoors stirred there when these old-timers got together. As a result of these conversations, Colonel Ingraham and Ned Buntline began to write of the adventures of Buffalo Bill for Street & Smith.

Colonel Cody was born in Scott County, Iowa, February 26, 1846. Before he had reached his teens, his father, Isaac Cody, with his mother and two sisters, migrated to Kansas, which at that time was little more than a wilderness.

When the elder Cody was killed shortly afterward in the Kansas “Border War,” young Bill assumed the difficult rôle of family breadwinner. During 1860, and until the outbreak of the Civil War, Cody lived the arduous life of a pony-express rider. Cody volunteered his services as government scout and guide and served throughout the Civil War with Generals McNeil and A. J. Smith. He was a distinguished member of the Seventh Kansas Cavalry.

During the Civil War, while riding through the streets of St. Louis, Cody rescued a frightened schoolgirl from a band of annoyers. In true romantic style, Cody and Louisa Federci, the girl, were married March 6, 1866.

In 1867 Cody was employed to furnish a specified amount of buffalo meat to the construction men at work on the Kansas Pacific Railroad. It was in this period that he received the sobriquet “Buffalo Bill.”

In 1868 and for four years thereafter Colonel Cody[2] served as scout and guide in campaigns against the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians. It was General Sheridan who conferred on Cody the honor of chief of scouts of the command.

After completing a period of service in the Nebraska legislature, Cody joined the Fifth Cavalry in 1876, and was again appointed chief of scouts.

Colonel Cody’s fame had reached the East long before, and a great many New Yorkers went out to see him and join in his buffalo hunts, including such men as August Belmont, James Gordon Bennett, Anson Stager, and J. G. Heckscher. In entertaining these visitors at Fort McPherson, Cody was accustomed to arrange wild-West exhibitions. In return his friends invited him to visit New York. It was upon seeing his first play in the metropolis that Cody conceived the idea of going into the show business.

Assisted by Ned Buntline, novelist, and Colonel Ingraham, he started his “Wild West” show, which later developed and expanded into “A Congress of the Rough Riders of the World,” first presented at Omaha, Nebraska. In time it became a familiar yearly entertainment in the great cities of this country and Europe. Many famous personages attended the performances, and became his warm friends, including Mr. Gladstone, the Marquis of Lorne, King Edward, Queen Victoria, and the Prince of Wales, now King of England.

At the outbreak of the Sioux, in 1890 and 1891, Colonel Cody served at the head of the Nebraska National Guard. In 1895 Cody took up the development of Wyoming Valley by introducing irrigation. Not long afterward he became judge advocate general of the Wyoming National Guard.

Colonel Cody (Buffalo Bill) died in Denver, Colorado, on January 10, 1917. His legacy to a grateful world was a large share in the development of the West, and a multitude of achievements in horsemanship, marksmanship, and endurance that will live for ages. His life will continue to be a leading example of the manliness, courage, and devotion to duty that belonged to a picturesque phase of American life now passed, like the great patriot whose career it typified, into the Great Beyond.

[5]

BUFFALO BILL’S BIG SURPRISE.

CHAPTER I. BAD NEWS.

It was at Fort Advance, one of the smaller frontier posts on the Indian border, just about the hour of sunset. Buffalo Bill and Colonel Carr, the commandant of the fort, were chatting together when suddenly Buffalo Bill raised his hands and pointed across the plains.

A horseman could be seen in the distance, and he was approaching at a furious gallop.

Buffalo Bill scanned the figure for a moment in silence.

“It is Hugh Hardin, the oldest of my scouts,” he said, “and I am willing to bet a few cigars that he brings news of a fresh Indian uprising.”

It was, indeed, Hugh Hardin, and a moment later he had pulled up his steed before Buffalo Bill and Colonel Carr, and, after saluting his superior officers, was making his report.

It was to the effect that the Indians to the number of several thousands were on the warpath, under command of Death Face and several other of their chiefs.

“I scouted near their camp,” said Hugh Hardin, “and I know that there is at least one white man in[6] their number. I saw him. He is Eagle, a well-known outlaw. He was formerly chief of the band known as the Renegade Red Riders, which you broke up, Buffalo Bill, not long ago.”

“What! Eagle, the outlaw chief!” exclaimed the colonel. “I thought you killed him, Cody?”

“I followed him and drove him off a precipice into Rapid River—man and horse,” said Cody; “but it looks as if he had escaped by swimming, and joined the redskins, now that his own band is wiped out. Are you sure that he is with the Indians?”

“Perfectly,” said Hugh Hardin.

“That man must be captured at all hazards,” said the colonel. “I shall immediately order out a troop of cavalry, as well as a battery of infantry, and send them on to oppose the Indians.”

An hour later the detachment of cavalry and artillery, under command of Lieutenant Worth, one of the most popular young officers in the post, was starting for Rapid River.

Two other commands of artillery and cavalry were dispatched immediately afterward.

Buffalo Bill headed the column, of course, and when, early the next day, after a hard night ride, they were within a few miles of the river, he advised the lieutenant to call a halt.

“I will go forward myself on a scout,” he said, “before[7] the Indians discover that there is a body of soldiers in the vicinity.”

“I suggest that you take one of the men in my troop, Sergeant Fallon, as an assistant. He has lived with the Indians for years, and can disguise himself perfectly as one, and speak the language well. Besides, they say that he has powerful friends among the Sioux chiefs. He can enter the camp in disguise, perhaps.”

Sergeant Fallon, a tall, lean, dark-faced man, stepped forward at the command of Lieutenant Worth, and, after a few words with Buffalo Bill, went off to disguise himself as an Indian, a complete disguise having been brought along with the artillery equipments by command of Lieutenant Worth.

“He is a mysterious man, evidently well educated,” said the lieutenant to Buffalo Bill, “and no one knows why he entered the army, as he is reputed to be very wealthy. He has good cause to wish to be revenged on Eagle, the outlaw chief. Eagle captured his daughter, Lucille Fallon, when she was on her way West, to hold her for ransom, and it was you yourself who rescued her when you wiped out Eagle’s band.”

“I remember the occasion,” said the great scout; “but here comes the man, and he looks like an Indian, indeed.”

Sergeant Fallon’s disguise was perfect, and an hour later the scout and he set out.

When they reached Rapid River, Fallon decided to[8] swim his horse across and enter the Indian camp disguised as he was, and Buffalo Bill, knowing from what he had seen and heard of the man that he could thoroughly trust him, allowed him to do so.

Buffalo Bill accompanied him as far as the river, and watched him across. He lost his form after he had got halfway across, but waited until he was sure that Fallon had reached the other side and found the Indian guards.

Hearing no outcry or shot, he muttered:

“I guess he’s all right, but his danger is great.

“The man grows upon me more and more, and I am sure that he has once held a high position and been in command of men.

“Well, if he gets back in safety, I will use my influence to get him the commission he richly deserves.”

So saying, the scout gazed in silence for a while over the weird, wild scene, lit up by the moonlight into picturesque beauty, and then, turning his horse, rode back to his camp for the night.

The sergeant, meanwhile, had crossed the river, been met by the guards, and then rode to the camp beyond the ridge.

To his surprise, he found there over a hundred Indian braves, and about a camp fire built out of sight up in a niche of the cliff stood several forms, upon whom his eyes were at once riveted.

Fighting Bird, an old Sioux chief, was there, and[9] near him stood the young chief, Death Face, while, seated upon a rock near, was a splendid type of a redskin leader, a man of almost herculean proportions, robed in gorgeous costume of tanned doeskin heavily embroidered with wampum, and wearing a war bonnet of barbaric splendor. His face was bold, rugged, crafty, intelligent, and merciless.

That countenance was furrowed with age, silver threads streaked his raven locks, but he was still the mighty leader of his people, the grand old fighter, plotter, good general, merciless foe of the palefaces, Iron Eyes, the head chief of his tribe.

By his side stood a fourth person.

It was one of elegant form, handsome face, dark and sinister, fine though it was. He was dressed in a black fatigue suit of army style, wore buttons of ten-dollar gold pieces, diamond studs and sleeve buttons in his negligee silk shirt, a massive watch chain, and a large, brilliant ruby upon the little finger of his left hand, his right being covered with a red glove.

This man had a cigar between his lips, stood like one waiting to be photographed, one booted foot resting upon a rock before him, and his elbow leaning upon his knee as a rest.

His spurs were of gold, his belt of arms showed that they were ornamented with the same precious metal, and, altogether, he was a most picturesque and striking figure, a man to stand in awe of.

[10]

As the sergeant approached, old Iron Eyes arose and greeted him, greeted him as he would one for whom he held both reverence and affection.

“Iron Eyes is surprised at meeting his paleface brother, the great medicine chief, White Wolf. The Iron Eyes has with him another great chief of the paleface race, the Eagle, his brother and ally, and here is my son, the mighty young chief who will some day wear the war bonnet of old Iron Eyes.

“It gladdens my heart to again see my brother, the White Wolf. He is welcome, and he has proven my friend.”

Such was the welcome and the introduction of the sergeant to those assembled about the camp fire in the little ravine among the cliffs.

[11]

CHAPTER II. THE OUTLAWS’ ALLY.

Sergeant Fallon was perfectly calm under the ordeal he was passing through. He greeted the old chief most reverently and kindly, offered his hand to the outlaw, for he wished to feel his grip and remember it, and saluted the young son of Iron Eyes courteously, while he did not by any means ignore Fighting Bird.

But he lost no time in at once saying:

“I am here unexpectedly to-night, for I wish to tell the great chief that his foes are not sure that he has warriors camped here, and they intend to send out scouts on foot to cross the river and find out. By drawing your braves far back, putting out your camp fires, and not one being seen, the scouts will come over and find no braves here.

“They will report this to their chiefs, and then when another night the force attempts to cross, the warriors of Iron Eyes will be here to ambush them.”

The words of the disguised sergeant were listened to in silence, but with great interest, and old Iron Eyes said:

“The Chief White Wolf speaks with wisdom, and my warriors shall at once draw back to cover.”

“Yes, it will be the very thing to do, for if the soldiers believe that you have withdrawn your guards[12] from the fords, they will cross, hoping to surprise you, and dash upon an ambush and be beaten back right here, as they should be.”

“I would send couriers to the other bands, also, chief,” the outlaw joined in, “to have them also fall back for the night. Would you not, White Wolf?”

“It would be just what I should do, sir,” answered the sergeant.

Orders were at once given to put out the camp fires, get the ponies and camp outfit, and retreat over the range half a mile back.

The sergeant went along and rode with Iron Eyes, the two talking together like old friends.

When they had come to a halt, the outlaw stepped up to the sergeant and asked:

“What force is on the other side, sir?”

“There are three commands, sir; two of considerable strength, the other not so large.”

“Have they any guns?”

“All three commands have artillery, sir.”

“And infantry?”

“Mounted infantry, with cavalry and guns.”

“Then Carr is in earnest?” said the outlaw.

“Yes, sir, he seems determined.”

“There are three men there whom I hate. I will give a reward to get their scalps.”

“Who are they, sir?”

“One is Lieutenant Worth, who has been a persistent[13] foe of my band of Red Riders; one is Buffalo Bill, and the other is Sergeant Fallon.”

“I know them all, sir.”

“They have both been strong allies to wipe me out, and here I am a fugitive to-day with no men left, and must begin life anew to gain both gold and revenge. But I am not dead yet, and I will have both.”

“You are right, Captain Eagle,” said the sergeant.

“May I ask your name, my friend?”

“My name is Louis, sir.”

“What position do you hold under Colonel Carr?”

“I am in the ordnance department, but hold only an inferior position.”

“You have once dwelt among the Indians?”

“Yes, as a fugitive from my own people, I became a renegade and was a medicine chief. When I could do so I returned to my people, unknown, however, to work like you, for gold and revenge. Some day I will have both.”

“See here, you are just the man that can aid me, and in doing so help yourself.”

“I am willing, if there is any money in it.”

“There is, and big money, too, for you.”

“I am your man, Captain Eagle,” was the earnest reply.

The outlaw was evidently greatly excited through some thought that had crossed his mind. He paced to and fro for a minute, his hands clasped behind his[14] back, his whole bearing that of one who was moved by strong emotion.

Again turning to the sergeant, he said, and in a perfectly calm tone:

“You dwell at Fort Advance, of course?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know Sergeant Fallon well?”

“He is my most intimate friend, and I occupy his quarters.”

“Good! Have you any love for him?”

“I have for him, sir, the deepest hatred, as he has been my worst enemy, and at times I have been tempted to take his life.”

“Then you are the very man I want for an ally—what do you say?”

“I will serve you, sir, as I can serve myself in doing so.”

[15]

CHAPTER III. PLOTTING WITH A FOE.

The outlaw leader seemed pleased with the idea of his ally’s hatred for Sergeant Fallon, and said, when he was told that he would serve him:

“Well, you will have to go slow, and there is much to be done.”

“I am ready.”

“I’ll tell you just what my plan is, and see what you think of it.”

“I’ll frankly tell you what I think.”

“I believe you, for the chief speaks of you in the highest terms, in fact loves you as a brother, and the only thing I had against you was that, after being a renegade, you went back to your people.”

“It was, as I said before, for a purpose.”

“Ah, yes; but now to my plot with you.”

“I am all attention.”

“You, of course, know the sergeant’s daughter?”

“I do.”

“She is an heiress, you know?”

“I have heard so; in fact, I know that it is the case, from the sergeant.”

“I had her a captive, with others, but Buffalo Bill guided Lieutenant Worth, Sergeant Fallon, and others to my retreat and rescued the prisoners, destroying my[16] band and making me fly as a fugitive for shelter with my good friend, Iron Eyes.”

“I see.”

“Now, I wish to get possession of Lucille Fallon, the sergeant’s daughter.”

“Ah!”

“And that is what I wish you to aid me in.”

“I can do it if any man can.”

“My plan is for you to notify me, by a letter left at a certain spot on the Overland trail, which I will describe to you, when I can get possession of her. She can be called to Pioneer City through an excuse of some kind to meet a lawyer there who will not come farther on, and I will hold up the coach and capture her.”

“But your men are all dead or prisoners?”

“Yes, but I am organizing another band out of new material, men who will serve my purpose even better than the others did.”

“You wish to capture the girl and get a big ransom for her?”

“That is just it, and Sergeant Fallon with her.”

“You wish both?”

“I do, the one for revenge, the other for gold.”

“Well, I believe I can arrange it.”

“You must understand the whole situation, the name of the girl’s lawyer in New York, something of the facts of the case of her inheritance, and just what to[17] do. Now, when she was my captive, I looked over her papers, and I have the name and address of the lawyer, in fact, one of his letters, and I can forge his writing perfectly.

“I will write the letter to her, mail it from Pioneer City, telling her that, writing as the lawyer, I cannot come any farther, as I am suffering with an attack of rheumatism, and that she and her father must come to me, the lawyer, mind you, by return coach. I will then lie in wait on the trail and capture them.”

“A good idea.”

“There is another thing: You must see to it that the girl’s jewels and money are taken along, though she must not know this. Smuggle them on the coach in some way, for you can get possession of them, intimate as you are at the sergeant’s home, and I will share with you.”

“Thank you. I know where the money and jewels are kept, and I can get them, and will see that they go through with the sergeant and his daughter, never fear.”

“Is Jack Jessop, the star driver, driving now?”

“Oh, yes.”

“It will be his last trip, for I’ll bury him on Monument Hill. He is too plucky a man to be in the Overland coach-driving business, and so he goes under.”

“It is just as well, I guess, though I rather like Jack.”

[18]

“Well, now, we’ll go over the whole matter again, and just as soon as you return to the fort notify me by letter what you think can be done, or if you can think of any better plan. The place to leave the letter is under the end of the third board of the Cañon River bridge, where it projects over the land, as I suppose it must, though I have not seen the new structure. At any rate, look well for a spot there, and I’ll find it, for I’ll take to the trail soon with my new band.”

“I’ll prepare the way for you, Captain Eagle, never fear,” was the answer of the sergeant, and then the two went all over the same ground again, the outlaw asking many questions about the fort and its people, and coming to what he considered was a thorough understanding with the man whom he little dreamed to be his foe.

This conversation being ended, the sergeant held a powwow with his old friend Iron Eyes, the outlaw, Death Face, and Fighting Bird being present.