Buntline opened with enthusiasm, but he did not kindle Wild Bill and Texas Jack, who looked as if they might at any moment grab their sombreros and stampede for the frontier. Will turned the scale.

"We're bound to make a fortune at it," said he. "Try it for a while, anyway."

The upshot of a long discussion was that the scouts gave a reluctant consent to a much-dreaded venture. Will made one stipulation.

"If the Indians get on the rampage," said he, "we must be allowed leave of absence to go back and settle them."

"All right, boys," said Buntline; "that shall be put in the contract.

And if you're called back into the army to fight redskins, I'll go with you."

This reply established the author firmly in the esteem of the scouts.

The play was written in four hours (most playwrights allow themselves at least a week), and the actor-scouts received their "parts." Buntline engaged a company to support the stellar trio, and the play was widely advertised.

When the critical "first night" arrived, none of the scouts knew a line of his part, but each had acquired all the varieties of stage fright known to the profession. Buntline had hinted to them the possibility of something of the sort, but they had not realized to what a condition of abject dismay a man may be reduced by the sight of a few hundred inoffensive people in front of a theater curtain. It would have done them no good to have told them (as is the truth) that many experienced actors have touches of stage fright, as well as the unfortunate novice.

All three declared that they would rather face a band of war-painted Indians, or undertake to check a herd of stampeding buffaloes, than face the peaceful-looking audience that was waiting to criticise their Thespian efforts.

Like almost all amateurs, they insisted on peering through the peep-holes in the curtain, which augmented their nervousness, and if the persuasive Colonel Judson had not been at their elbows, reminding them that he, also, was to take part in the play, it is more than likely they would have slipped quietly out at the stage door and bought railway pa.s.sage to the West.

Presently the curtain rolled up, and the audience applauded encouragingly as three quaking six-footers, clad in buckskin, made their first bow before the footlights.

I have said that Will did not know a line of his part, nor did he when the time to make his opening speech arrived. It had been faithfully memorized, but oozed from his mind like the courage from Bob Acres's finger-tips. "Evidently," thought Buntline, who was on the stage with him, "he needs time to recover." So he asked carelessly:

"What have you been about lately, Bill?"

This gave "The Scout of the Plains" an inspiration. In glancing over the audience, he had recognized in one of the boxes a wealthy gentleman named Milligan, whom he had once guided on a big hunt near McPherson.

The expedition had been written up by the Chicago papers, and the incidents of it were well known.

"I've been out on a hunt with Milligan," replied Will, and the house came down. Milligan was quite popular, but had been the b.u.t.t of innumerable jokes because of his alleged scare over the Indians. The applause and laughter that greeted the sally stocked the scout with confidence, but confidence is of no use if one has forgotten his part.

It became manifest to the playwright-actor that he would have to prepare another play in place of the one he had expected to perform, and that he must prepare it on the spot.

"Tell us about it, Bill," said he, and the prompter groaned.

One of the pleasures of frontier life consists in telling stories around the camp-fire. A man who ranks as a good frontiersman is pretty sure to be a good raconteur. Will was at ease immediately, and proceeded to relate the story of Milligan's hunt in his own words. That it was amusing was attested by the frequent rounds of applause. The prompter, with a commendable desire to get things running smoothly, tried again and again to give Will his cue, but even cues had been forgotten.

The dialogue of that performance must have been delightfully absurd.

Neither Texas Jack nor Wild Bill was able to utter a line of his part during the entire evening. In the Indian scenes, however, they scored a great success; here was work that did not need to be painfully memorized, and the mock red men were slain at an astonishing rate.

Financially the play proved all that its projectors could ask for.

Artistically--well, the critics had a great deal of fun with the hapless dramatist. The professionals in the company had played their parts acceptably, and, oddly enough, the scouts were let down gently in the criticisms; but the critics had no means of knowing that the stars of the piece had provided their own dialogue, and poor Ned Buntline was plastered with ridicule. It had got out that the play was written in four hours, and in mentioning this fact, one paper wondered, with delicate sarcasm, what the dramatist had been doing all that time.

Buntline had played the part of "Gale Durg," who met death in the second act, and a second paper, commenting on this, suggested that it would have been a happy consummation had the death occurred before the play was written. A third critic p.r.o.nounced it a drama that might be begun in the middle and played both ways, or played backward, quite as well as the way in which it had been written.

However, nothing succeeds like success. A number of managers offered to take hold of the company, and others asked for entrance to the enterprise as partners. Ned Buntline took his medicine from the critics with a smiling face, for "let him laugh who wins."

The scouts soon got over their stage fright, in the course of time were able to remember their parts, and did fully their share toward making the play as much of a success artistically as it was financially. From Chicago the company went to St. Louis, thence to Cincinnati and other large cities, and everywhere drew large and appreciative houses.

When the season closed, in Boston, and Will had made his preparations to return to Nebraska, an English gentleman named Medley, presented himself, with a request that the scout act as guide on a big hunt and camping trip through Western territory. The pay offered was liberal--a thousand dollars a month and expenses--and Will accepted the offer.

He spent that summer in his old occupation, and the ensuing winter continued his tour as a star of the drama. Wild Bill and Texas Jack consented again to "support" him, but the second season proved too much for the patience of the former, and he attempted to break through the contract he had signed for the season. The manager, of course, refused to release him, but Wild Bill conceived the notion that under certain circ.u.mstances the company would be glad to get rid of him.

That night he put his plan into execution by discharging his blank cartridges so near the legs of the dead Indians on the stage that the startled "supers" came to life with more realistic yells than had accompanied their deaths. This was a bit of "business" not called for in the play-book, and while the audience was vastly entertained, the management withheld its approval.

Will was delegated to expostulate with the reckless Indian-slayer; but Wild Bill remarked calmly that he "hadn't hurt the fellows any," and he continued to indulge in his innocent pastime.

Severe measures were next resorted to. He was informed that he must stop shooting the Indians after they were dead, or leave the company. This was what Wild Bill had hoped for, and when the curtain went up on the next performance he was to be seen in the audience, enjoying the play for the first time since he had been mixed up with it.

Will sympathized with his former "support," but he had a duty to perform, and faithfully endeavored to persuade the recreant actor to return to the company. Persuasion went for nothing, so the contract was annulled, and Wild Bill returned to his beloved plains.

The next season Will removed his family to Rochester, and organized a theatrical company of his own. There was too much artificiality about stage life to suit one that had been accustomed to stern reality, and he sought to do away with this as much as possible by introducing into his own company a band of real Indians. The season of 1875-76 opened brilliantly; the company played to crowded houses, and Will made a large financial success.

One night in April, when the season was nearing its close, a telegram was handed to him, just as he was about to step upon the stage. It was from his wife, and summoned him to Rochester, to the bedside of his only son, Kit Carson Cody. He consulted with his manager, and it was arranged that after the first act he should be excused, that he might catch the train.

That first act was a miserable experience, though the audience did not suspect that the actor's heart was almost stopped by fear and anxiety.

He caught his train, and the manager, John Burke, an actor of much experience, played out the part.

It was, too, a miserable ride to Rochester, filled up with the gloomiest of forebodings, heightened by memories of every incident in the precious little life now in danger.

Kit was a handsome child, with striking features and curly hair. His mother always dressed him in the finest clothes, and tempted by these combined attractions, gypsies had carried him away the previous summer.

But Kit was the son of a scout, and his young eyes were sharp. He marked the trail followed by his captors, and at the first opportunity gave them the slip and got safely home, exclaiming as he toddled into the sobbing family circle, "I tumed back adain, mama; don't cry." Despite his anxiety, Will smiled at the recollection of the season when his little son had been a regular visitor at the theater. The little fellow knew that the most important feature of a dramatic performance, from a management's point of view, is a large audience. He watched the seats fill in keen anxiety, and the moment the curtain rose and his father appeared on the stage, he would make a trumpet of his little hands, and shout from his box, "Good house, papa!" The audience learned to expect and enjoy this bit of by-play between father and son. His duty performed, Kit settled himself in his seat, and gave himself up to undisturbed enjoyment of the play.

When Will reached Rochester he found his son still alive, though beyond the reach of medical aid. He was burning up with fever, but still conscious, and the little arms were joyfully lifted to clasp around his father's neck. He lingered during the next day and into the night, but the end came, and Will faced a great sorrow of his life. He had built fond hopes for his son, and in a breath they had been swept away. His boyhood musings over the prophecy of the fortune-teller had taken a turn when his own boy was born. It might be Kit's destiny to become President of the United States; it was not his own. Now, hope and fear had vanished together, the fabric of the dream had dissolved, and left "not a rack behind."

Little Kit was laid to rest in Mount Hope Cemetery, April 24, 1876. He is not dead, but sleeping; not lost, but gone before. He has joined the innumerable company of the white-souled throng in the regions of the blest. He has gone to aid my mother in her mission unfulfilled--that of turning heavenward the eyes of those that loved them so dearly here on earth.

CHAPTER XXIII. -- THE GOVERNMENT'S INDIAN POLICY.

VERY glad was the sad-hearted father that the theatrical season was so nearly over. The mummeries of stage life were more distasteful to him than ever when he returned to his company with his crushing grief fresh upon him. He played nightly to crowded houses, but it was plain that his heart was not in his work. A letter from Colonel Mills, informing him that his services were needed in the army, came as a welcome relief.

He canceled his few remaining dates, and disbanded his company with a substantial remuneration.

This was the spring of the Centennial year. It has also been called the "Custer year," for during that summer the gallant general and his heroic Three Hundred fell in their unequal contest with Sitting Bull and his warriors.

Sitting Bull was one of the ablest chiefs and fighters the Sioux nation ever produced. He got his name from the fact that once when he had shot a buffalo he sprang astride of it to skin it, and the wounded bull rose on its haunches with the Indian on its back. He combined native Indian cunning with the strategy and finesse needed to make a great general, and his ability as a leader was conceded alike by red and white man. A dangerous man at best, the wrongs his people had suffered roused all his Indian cruelty, vindictiveness, hatred, and thirst for revenge.

The Sioux war of 1876 had its origin, like most of its predecessors and successors, in an act of injustice on the part of the United States government and a violation of treaty rights.

In 1868 a treaty had been made with the Sioux, by which the Black Hills country was reserved for their exclusive use, no settling by white men to be allowed. In 1874 gold was discovered, and the usual gold fever was followed by a rush of whites into the Indian country. The Sioux naturally resented the intrusion, and instead of attempting to placate them, to the end that the treaty might be revised, the government sent General Custer into the Black Hills with instructions to intimidate the Indians into submission. But Custer was too wise, too familiar with Indian nature, to adhere to his instructions to the letter. Under cover of a flag of truce a council was arranged. At this gathering coffee, sugar, and bacon were distributed among the Indians, and along with those commodities Custer handed around some advice. This was to the effect that it would be to the advantage of the Sioux if they permitted the miners to occupy the gold country. The coffee, sugar, and bacon were accepted thankfully by Lo, but no nation, tribe, or individual since the world began has ever welcomed advice. It was thrown away on Lo.

He received it with such an air of indifference and in such a stoical silence that General Custer had no hope his mission had succeeded.

In 1875 General Crook was sent into the Hills to make a farcical demonstration of the government's desire to maintain good faith, but no one was deceived, the Indians least of all. In August Custer City was laid out, and in two weeks its population numbered six hundred. General Crook drove out the inhabitants, and as he marched triumphantly out of one end of the village the people marched in again at the other.

The result of this continued bad faith was inevitable; everywhere the Sioux rose in arms. Strange as it might seem to one who has not followed the government's remarkable Indian policy, it had dispensed firearms to the Indians with a generous hand. The government's Indian policy, condensed, was to stock the red man with rifles and cartridges, and then provide him with a first-cla.s.s reason for using them against the whites.

During May, June, and July of that year the Sioux had received 1,120 Remington and Winchester rifles and 13,000 rounds of patent ammunition.

During that year they received several thousand stands of arms and more than a million rounds of ammunition, and for three years before that they had been regularly supplied with weapons. The Sioux uprising of 1876 was expensive for the government. One does not have to go far to find the explanation.

Will expected to join General Crook, but on reaching Chicago he found that General Carr was still in command of the Fifth Cavalry, and had sent a request that Will return to his old regiment. Carr was at Cheyenne; thither Will hastened at once. He was met at the station by Captain Charles King, the well-known author, and later serving as brigadier-general at Manila, then adjutant of the regiment. As the pair rode into camp the cry went up, "Here comes Buffalo Bill!" Three ringing cheers expressed the delight of the troopers over his return to his old command, and Will was equally delighted to meet his quondam companions.

He was appointed guide and chief of scouts, and the regiment proceeded to Laramie. From there they were ordered into the Black Hills country, and Colonel Merritt replaced General Carr.

The incidents of Custer's fight and fall are so well known that it is not necessary to repeat them here. It was a better fight than the famous charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, for not one of the three hundred came forth from the "jaws of death." As at Balaklava, "some one had blundered," not once, but many times, and Custer's command discharged the entire debt with their lifeblood.