_A WEEKLY PUBLICATION : DEVOTED 10 BORDER HISTORY

 

Issued Weekly. By Subscription $2.50 per year. Entered as Second Class Matter at New York Post Office by STREET & SMITH, 238 William St., N. Y.

"No. 214. : Price, Five Cents.

 

 

 

 

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Lariat Larry leaned far over the cliff and sent his lasso whirling over the head of the redskin,
just as he was about to stab Buffalo Bill in the back.

 

 
 

 
 

  
  

 

 
  
   

 

ATION
DEVOTED TO BORDER HISTORY

issued Weekly. By Subscription $2.50 per year. Entered as Second-class Matter at the N. Y. Post Office, by STREET & SMITH, 79-8 Seventh Avenue,
N.Y. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 10905, 1n the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D.C.

A WEEKLY PUBLIC

 

 

 

 

[33> Beware of Wild West imitations of the Buffalo Bill Stories. They are about fictitious characters. The Buffalo

over the world as the king of scouts.

Bill weekly is the only weekly containing the adventures of Buffalo Bill, (Col. W. F. Cody), who is known all

  

 

: No. 214, é

NEW YORK, June VA 1905.

Price Five Cents,

 

 

*

 

OR,

Lariat Larry’s Last Throw

   

 

 

By the author of “ BUFFALO BILL.”

  

 

CHAPTER 1.

THE GHOST DANCE OF THE SIOUX.

 

“Plenty of fresh meat for the garrison over there,
Nick!” .
| The speaker jumped off his horse as he spoke, and
j motioned to his two companions to do the same.
| He was a handsome, well-built scout in the prime of
life, with a keen, bright eye and an alert bearing. He
looked a man who was born to command and used to
all the hardships and dangers of frontier life. So, in-
A deed, he was, for he was the famous Col. William F.
Cody, better known to his comrades and to the world as
Buffalo Bill, the knight of the plains and king of the
scouts.

The two men riding with him over the rolling prairie
: that stretched away to the limits of the “Bad Lands,”
it the ‘scene of so many desperate fights with Indians and
outlaws, were his old friends, Wild Bill Hickok and Nick
Wharton. : |

 

_. These Indians had for some years been living on their

   
 
   
   
   
   
  
   
    
  
  
   

They had not long returned to their old hunting
grounds at the time this story opens, after a series of
thrilling adventures across the Mexican border, which
were recounted in the last story of this series, ‘ Buffalo
Bills Diamond Hunt; or, The King of Bonanza Gulch.”

At present, they had attached themselves to the Pine
Ridge Indian reservation agency, where a considerable
force of United States troopers had been gathered in
a hastily built log fort in anticipation of possible trouble
with the Dakota Sioux.

reservation in peace, after having been defeated in a
couple of sanguinary campaigns; but a wave of super-
stition, carefully fostered by their medicine men, had
broken out among them, and careful observers like Buf-
falo Bill had told the government that it would be wise to
get ready for a fight, even though the braves had not yet
left their lodges on the reservation to go on the warpath. 4»
Thus it came about that the border king and his com-
 

“anions had gone out hunting, with the idea of obtain-
eng a supply of fresh meat for the troops assembled at
Pine, Ridge.

Early, that morning en had come. upon the trail of

a large band of elk, and had followed in hot pursuit.
The. wind was in the right direction, and after about
three hours’ riding along the trail, they had just come in
cight of the elk, who were quite unsuspicious of danger.
Picketing their horses, they commenced to stalk on
foot. -

The ground was favorable, and they got within forty

yards of where the elk were browsing, without the ani-
mals becoming aware of their presence.

It would have been hard to find a more beautiful

picture than the herd presented. '

There were about eighty of the magnificent animals
of all ages, from the stately buck, who was the grand-
father of the herd, down to the young and lively fawns.

Some were lying down, resting peacefully, and others
were quietly feeding, without the least notion of their
peril. : Mn

The position of the scouts was on the brow of a small,
steep, sandy ridge, thickly covered with long grass at
the top, through which they could watch the movements
of the herd without being themselves seen.

_A good, stiff breeze. blew directly from the animals to
the men, so that there was no fear of the former scenting
them.

The scouts lay on the top of the little ridge for at
least five minutes, admiring the magnificent pietie which
the herd presented.

It was one of the grandest. sights that even they, in
all. their wide experience of frontier life, had ever seen.

Of all animals in a wild state, the elk is the handsomest..

The bulls in this herd were full maned and almost
black about.the neck.and muzzle. Some of the old ones
had grand heads, but the greater number were only two
or three years old, and their antlers were not yet fully
grown. The cows were very handsome and in fine condi-
tion, and the fawns that frolicked around them were as
graceful and pretty as they well could be.

_ Buffalo Bill and his friends, old hunters though hey
were, hated to disturb such a happy scene; but necessity
knows no law. The soldiers at the agency needed fresh
meat very badly, and they must be considered before the
animals.

Picking nae their favorites, they fired at the a of
command from Buffalo Bill, The border king himself
selected a fine bull that was not more than fifty yards

from where he lay, and he sent a bullet directly through -

the animal’ s heart.

Wild Bill’s rifle missed fires to fe deep disgust, but
Nick Wharton knocked over a grand old bull, which lay
kicking on the ground, apparently in a death agony..

_ They then blazed away at the: nearest animals, and

‘the positions

: | | THE BUFFALO BILL STORIES.

knocked over three others. But in the excitement of fir-
ing at the retreating elks, they paid no attention to those
that were already down, and they were disgusted and
surprised to see Nick Wharton’s first victim, who was
the finest of the lot, trotting steadily away, well out of
range.

“Gol-durn th’ old hick’ry that father used to swat me
with!” exclaimed the old trapper. “‘Ef thet ain’t the
galumpinest streak o’ bad luck, you kin write me down
a Mormon.”

‘Cutting the throats of the fallen animals as quickly as
possible, he mounted on his old mare, Diana, and
galloped after the herd, who, having neither seen nor

elt the men, were not much alarmed by the shots.and
the death of their comrades. His two companions. has-
tened to follow him on horseback.

After a sharp gallop of about four miles, oe well

to windward and out of sight, they again struck the herd.

This time they got to within a hundred yards of the
place where the animals were quietly feeding, and they

_again did considerable execution.

It would have amazed anyone who did not know the
vitality of the elk as well as the scouts did, to see how
many got off safely after having been apparently mor-
tally wounded. They gave up the ghost with almost as
much.reluctance as a grizzly bear.

Wild Bill knocked over a fine bull which fell, to all
appearances, quite dead. He pitched right over on get-
ting the shot, with one of°his fore legs entangled amid
his branching antlers. :

Bill hastened up to cut his throat. To save the trouble
of picketing his horse, he tied the end of the lariat to
the elk’s hind leg, while he dragged the body round to
get it in a more convenient position for the act oF exe-
cution.

This movement set free the entangled limb, but the
elk had been only “creased,” as Western hunters say, in-
stead of being mortally wounded. That is to say, it had
been shot through the thick, Lee part of the neck and
momentarily paralyzed.

_As Wild Bill set free the leg, the beast came to its
senses and'jumped up. With the horse fastened to it,
it galloped away as strongly as) i i had never been
touched. :

Cody and Wharton laughed until ihe sides ached, for
the sight was funny in the extreme.

Away raced the elk, with the horse following close
after. If it slackened speed, the tugging on the lariat
soon made it gallop again. —

Wild Bill, mad as the proverbial hatter, raced after the
pair, shouting vainly to the horse to stop, and not daring
to fire at the elk lest he should hit his valuable steed, for

of the two animals were constantly
changing. : See

~ Suddenly the eli turned round to fight ¢ he horse, for

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

  

he got worried by having it following so closely at his
heels.

This movement gave Wild Bill just the chance he was
looking for.

Leveling his rifle as quick as a flash, he took a snap
shot and cut the lariat in two with the bullet just where
it was tied to the elk’s leg.

A second bullet laid the elk out on the grass, dead at

last.

_ The scouts had by this time got all the meat they
wanted, and they were not the sort of men to indulge in
needless slaughter, so they did not pursue the herd when
it fled for the second time.

They had arranged for a wagon to follow them from
the agency, and when at last it came up, it was piled
high with the carcasses of the slain elks—enough meat
to last the soldiers for a week.

“T wonder what has come to Lariat Larry,” said Wild
Bill, as they rode back along their trail, with the wagon
following after them. “I haven’t seen him anywhere
around the agency for more than a week. He was so
set on taking part in an Injun scrap that you wouldn’t
think he’d duck out just as there’s a chance of it coming
oe:

“The brigadier told me, just before we left, that Larry
had gone out among some of the Sioux on the reservation
to try to find out just what they are thinking of doing,”
said Buffalo Bill. “He knows their lingo and their ways
pretty well, so he may have some luck. It’s pretty risky
work, though, with them in their present frame of mind.”

Lariat Larry, whose real name was Lawrence Hark-
ness, was a young scout who had recently become friendly
with Buffalo Bill and his companions.

They had met him at the agency, and had grown to
like him because of his high spirit and courage.
had been born and bred on the frontier, and was a scout
and hunter of remarkable skill and experience, although
he was only a few months over twenty years old. .

But of all his accomplishments as a plainsman, there
was none that equaled his skill with the lariat. He could
rope an animal better than any other man on the plains.
Not even Buffalo Bill could compete a) him with the
_lasso—hence his name of “Lariat Larry.”

When the three friends rode up to the agency, they
were delighted to find Larry waiting there for them. He
had returned safely from his visit to the Indian lodges,
and he brought a report to the brigadier-general in com-
mand of the troops, to the effect that the larger portion
of the braves seemed to be on the point of making a move.

_ This was serious news, as all the scouts agreed when
the general called them into consultation.

If the Indians were going to leave the reservation, the
chances were that they intended to retreat to some strong-
hold in the Bad Lands where they could bid defiance to’
the troopers.

Lary:

 

JE BUPPAdt) BILL STORIES, : a

i;

On the other hand, it was difficult to forbid ther to
go, for they would say that they only meant to go hunt-

ing, which of course they had a perfect right to do.

War had not been declared, and the redskins had rot
committed any act of hostility. If the general did any-
thing which might provoke a fight, he knew that tlie
war department at Washington would punish him se-
verely. Therefore, he was in a quandary, and told the
scouts frankly that he did not know what to do.

“The Indians, so far as I can make out,” said the
young scout, “are entirely under the thumb of their medi- _
cine men. They have been taught that their good spirit,
Great Wakantanka, is coming down to earth very soon to
deliver them from the hands of the white men and re-
store their tribe to all its old glory.

“The priests tell them they must dance the ghost ae
in honor of Great Wakantanka, and to prepare for. his
coming. This ghost dance, as you know very well, Cody,
is only just a trifle less dangerous than the war dance. It

- excites the braves almost as much.

“They have been dancing in secret for several days,
so one of the squaws told me, and they are going to
dance again to-night. I made the squaw show me the
place, and I’m going there to-night to watch them. L
think we might find out something of their intentions
that way.

“It is no good talking to them. I tried it with three
or four braves, as well as with the big chief, Short Bull,
They said they were quite contented and loved the white
man and didn’t mean to leave the reservation. I ques-
tioned them every way I could think of, to try to trip

them up; but they were thoroughly on their guard.”

“T’ll come with you to-night, if you don’t mind, (arry
said Buffalo Bill. “I haven't seen a ghost dance for more
than ten years. I thought the Sioux had given them up
altogether.” ,

Wild Bill and Nick Wharton would have liked to ac-
company their friends, but the general had work for them
to do. He wanted messages carried promptly to his sub-
ordinates in two neighboring forts, warning them to be
on, their guard day and night against a possible ce
of the Indians.

Tt was not until late in the evening that Cody and
Larry started on their expedition. The spot where the
dance was to take place about midnight was five miles
distant, in a natural clearing situated in the heart of a
small wood.

They approached the place very cautiously, for they
knew that if the redskins caught them, they would be
very likely to murder them under the influence’ of their
religious mania.

The clearing was full of braves when they reached it,
shortly before midnight. They were sitting on the ground
and droning a monotonous song in honor of Great

 

  
 

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discovered unless an Indian should happen to stumble
upon them by accident
After they had been waiting for over half an hour,
they saw the chief medicine man of the a Cunning
ne, stride out of the wood on the other side

His appearance was welcomed by a loud cry from the
braves, who numbered more than two hundred.

The high priest was elaborately decked out with eagle
feathers, a fine beaded ‘work, and a profusion of
nts all over his clothes.

The dancers, however, wore no ornaments such as they
were fond of in other dances. Their faces were hide-

ously painted in white so that they resembled grinning
skulls. This was why the ceremony was called the ghost
dance. Under the light of the moon, the braves did in-
deed look as if they were animated tenants of the tomb
permitted for a brief period to revisit the earth.

A pole decorated with many offerings to the Great

Spirit Had been placed in the center of the clearing. It

was noticed by the scouts that most of the offerings were

things which the medicine men would like.

The braves danced slowly around the pole—or “sacred
tree,” as they called it—holding hands tightly in a circle.
At first only about fifty braves danced, but the others
soon joined in, forming other circles outside the first one.

The dancing was slow and stately at first, but it rap-
idly increased in speed until in a few minutes the braves
were whirling around at a giddy rate.

Then, when they were all panting with exhaustion, the
high priest and his assistants shouted to them to halt. As

they paused, Cunning Fox raised his hands in a suppli- ~

cating attitude to the west, and all the men followed his
example.

So they remained for the space of a minute or two, and
then the high priest prayed in a loud voice.

“Great Wakantanka—good spirit of the earth and
sky!” he cried. “The time is near for your coming. Has-
ten to your people, restore them to their old hunting
grounds which the white men have taken away from
them, and bring back the buffaloes which now are so
scarce. Give power to our warriors so that they may
kill all the white men and suffer no harm from their bul-
lets in the fighting. Come down from the sky, Great
Wakantanka, and lead us to victory.”

As the crafty priest prayed, the braves smote their
breasts and yelled in their excitement, crying to the Great

 

 

BILL STORIES.

aid that he would soon descend to
t the agency and dwelt no more by

\

smiled on him ands
1
L

A

a
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om
n

is announcement inc excel the excitement of the
braves almost to the point of frenzy. After prayers and
weeping and more offerings to the sacred pole, the dance
was started again.

The. dancers went rather slowly at first, but as the
istants in the center began to shout and
leap about, the he joined in their enthusiasm.
oving with a regular step, each dancer

and forward, up and down, as hard as
1e could Sues ae go of the next man’s hand. It
was reckoned very bad luck to break the circle.

At last, however, the dance being finished, the braves
fell out 5f the ranks, one by one, some of them stag-
gering like drunken men, and others rushing wildly to
and fro as if they were maniacs,

Many fell to the ground and writhed there as if they
were possessed of demons, while others flung blankets
over*their heads and rushed blindly into the bush, knock-
ing their heads against the tree trunks in the frenzy of
their religious mania.

The priests were kept busy waving their eagle feathers
in the faces of the more violent of the worshipers.

The feather was considered sacred, and the Indians
believed that it would send them into trances in which
they could look upon the face of Great Wakantanka.

As a matter of fact, however, these trances were pro-
duced by the skill of the medicine men in the art of mes-
merism. The piercing glances they gave to their dupes,
followed by a few hypnotic passes, seldom failed to send
them into a trance or deep sleep.

ares
priest and his as

When ‘the braves slowly recovered from this trance in
the course of a few minutes, they shouted that they had
seen glorious visions in which the Great Spirit had told
them he was going to remove the whites from the earth
and give it all over to the red men.

The crafty priests had, of course, suggested these
dreams to their hypnotized victims.

The dream of one of the braves, a stalwart warrior
who carried half a dozen scalps in his waist belt, was
typical of the rest.

“When I fell asleep,” Buffalo Bull and Larry heard
him say, “a great and grand eagle came and carried me
over a tall hill to a place where there was a fine village
of the kind we used to have before the whites came to
our.country.

“The tepees were all-made of buffalo hide and the
braves used bows and arrows, as in the old days before
the white man brought his.guns to us. No whites were

 

 

Ry
  

 

 

 

allowed to live in this glorious country that I saw in my:
dream, and the lands that stretched out before me on
every side were broad and fertile.

“T was taken into the presence of Great Wakantanka,
and he showed me all my friends and comrades who were
slain long ago by the accursed white man. Then we all
went together to another village, even finer than the first
one, and the Good Spirit served a great feast and showed
me a beautiful valley where there were thousands of buf-
falo and deer and elk feeding.

“As I gazed upon the valley, the Great Spirit told me
that the earth was now bad and worn out. We needed a
new dwelling place where the rascally whites could not
disturb us. He told me to return to my‘ people, the
Sioux, whom he loved, and tell them that they must prac-
tice the ghost dance every day and pay no attention to
the whites if they tried to stop it.

“The priests, he said, were to make for the warriors ©
medicine shirts and pray over them, and then no harm

would come to the wearers. The bullets of any whites
that tried to stop the sacred dance would fall harmlessly

‘to the ground, and if they fired a second time the bul-

lets would spring back and kill the men who shot them.

Great Wakantanka told me at the last that he had pre-

pared an immense hole in the ground and filled it with

hot water and fire, into which he was going to thrust all

the white men when he came down to make the earth a
better place for the red man.”

Naturally, such a dream as this, and many others like
it, had a maddening effect on the already excited mob.
They saw themselves in imagination victors over the
whites whom they hated so bitterly.

Silently and stealthily, the scouts withdrew through the

- wood and returned to the agency. They had heard and

seen enough to convince them that a fight with the red-
skins was inevitable.

 

CHAPTER 1.
IN THE STRONGHOLD OF SHORT BULL.

They reported to the general the strange and thrilling
sights they had seen, and he was much disturbed at the
news.

“Tf I could do as I wish,” he said; “I would immedi-
ately surround the Indians with a strong force of troops,
and prevent them from leaving their reservation.

“In that way, we could nip this business in the bud;
but if we let it gain headway we shall have half a dozen
other tribes joining in, and before we know where we

-are, we shall have a big Indian war on our hands. , :

“But unfortunately | have just received most urgent
orders from Wéeshington to do nothing to force on a
fight. I must wait until the redskins take the warpath.”

The scouts could advise nothing under these circum-

their lodges again and again.

    

 

THE BUFFALO BILL STORIES. | 5

_sstances, except to keep as close a watch on the Indians

as posible.

They left the fort next day for another hunt, and-when
they returned nearly a weel later, they found the general
awaiting’ them with much impatience.

The whole of the braves at the agency had gone away
in three parties, saying that they meant to have a big
hunt. Scouts had been sent out after them, and had re-
ported that the three parties had met in. the Bad Lands
and formed quite a formidable lijtle army under the
command of the redoubtable chief, Short Bull.

“According to all the reports I have received,” said
the general, “the hostiles have taken up a -very strong
position near Wounded Knee Creek, and are in consider-
able force. I don’t want to move against them until I
know more about their position and strength, for it would
mean wasting the lives of many of my soldiers.

“But I have not yet given up hope of bringing them .
to reason without a fight. If this ghost-dance idea could
only be knocked out of their heads, they would give no
further trouble. They are not really vicious—only blindly
deluded by their medicine men.

“But the trouble is that they have refused to receive
any of the officers 1 have sent to reason with them. They
won’t let any white men approach near them. They have
become so crazed with this ghost dance within the last
week that it is as much as a man’s scalp is worth even
to go to Wounded Knee and propose a conference.”

“I know the Sioux language,” said Buffalo Bill, “and
I am acquainted with Short Bull and several of the other
chiefs. .I have hunted buffaloes with them and visited .
I will go to Wounded
Knee and talk to them, if you wish. It is just. possible
that they might listen to me, though they are hard to
reason with when they have these ghost-dance crazes.”

“No, I can’t permit you to try it,” declared the gen-
eral. “You would simply throw your life away. They
sent word by my last messenger that they would kill the
next white man who came to them, whatever his busi-
ness. It is almost certain we shall have to fight, and if
we do I shall need you badly.”

Buffalo. Bill thought for a moment, and then he said:

“Well, I know what might be done, general. There
are plenty of the Sioux who have not joined the ranks of
the hostiles, and who look upon this ghost-dance busi-
ness with contempt. Let us get some of them to ride
to Wounded Knee and talk to the braves there. They
are redskins, and their own tribesmen would hardly be
likely to lift their scalps. :

“T know the very man who could head a mission of
that sort. He is a half-breed named Louis Sha angraux.
He used to have great influence in the councils of the
tribe when I hunted with them.”

“Ts he friendly and. reliable?” asked the ae
eagerly.
 

6 THE BUFFALO
“Yes, and one of the bravest fellows I ever met. If
anybody could carry out such a mission, it is he.”
“Then if you can get him to do it, you will be doing
a great service.” |
The border king promised to go in search of the halt-
breed, and next day he found him, as he had expected,
at his lodge at a neighboring agency, where most of the
friendly Sioux had collected. When he explained what
was wanted, the man at once undertook the dangerous
task, and said he would get several other friendlies to

go with him.

Two days passed before Shangraux came into the camp
to see the general and Buffalo Bill before he departed
on his risky mission.

It proved to be one of the most dangerous and exciting
expeditions ever carried out in the history of border
warfare.

The sight which Shangraux and his followers—the
leaders among the friendly Indians—presented when they
rode into camp was one not soon to be forgotten.

They appeared over a hill to the northwest of the camp
in the early morning, riding at full speed as if they were
charging ‘down to make an attack. Some of the sentries,
indeed, gave the alarm and turned out the picket guard,
rifles in hand, to repel them.

There were thirty-two men in the ae) and they rode
in two lines, sixteen abreast. Their fine horses were cov-
ered with foam from their long and rapid ride, and as
they advanced they chanted the. war songs of their tribe.

They were not going to battle, but on a peace mission;
yet they were well aware that it would prove far more
dangerous than the ordinary war party, and therefore
they sang.

Louis Shaneraux rode ahead, with a famous chief
named No Neck behind him.

Every man in the party was superbly mounted and well |

armed. Six-shooters were in their belts, while their gun
cases, finely beaded and ornamented, were strapped to
their saddles, only the butts of their trusty Winchesters
showing.

The horses seemed to partake of the joy of the men
at the danger of the trip they were about to undertake,
for they pranced about and coats their bits in the
liveliest fashion.

The party drew up in front of the general’s tent, and
as the last notes of their song died away they leaped on)
the backs of their horses.

The general welcomed them warmly a gave them
valuable presents, for he thoroughly appreciated the
effort they were going to make to avert the slaughter
alike of his men and of their own tribesmen at the risk
of their own lives.

After conferring with him for some time and receiving
messages to take to the hostiles, the Indians mounted their
horses again and rode off. : )

BILL STORIES.

They traveled at a good pace, and at sundown reached

‘a high point of land about five miles from the camp of

the hostiles. There they bivouacked for the night by the
side of a small stream.

The fire which they made was seen by the Sioux, and
during the night twenty braves, armed to the teeth, rode
down and asked them what they wanted.

“Have you come to spy on us for the palefaces?”’ they
demanded, threateningly. “Speak quickly, or we will
shoot you.”

To emphasize their words, they handled their rifles and
tomahawks in a way that had the clearest possible
meaning.

If the friendlies had shown fear by so much as the
trembling of a hand or the flickering of an eyelid, they
would probably have been slain upon the spot. But they
were carefully picked men who fogs nothing except
disgrace.

Louis, the half-breed, advanced and acted as spokes-
man.

“We have come on a mission of peace, and have no
quarrel with our brothers,” he declared in a fearless, but
conciliatory, tone. “Are we not men of the same tribe?
Does the buffalo war against the buffalo, or bear against
bear? It is only the mean and cowardly wolf that eats
his brethren. The Sioux does not lift his tomahawk
against a brother Sioux. Do I not speak straight words,
my brothers?’

The hostiles grunted doubtfully. They were sa tete
by his talk, but their suspicions had not yet been fully
allayed.

Louis saw that he had gained an advantage, and he
went on, without giving them time to take counsel to-
gether : :

“TI have come, with my friend No Neck and the other
chiefs in my party, to hold a great council with the chiefs
at your camp at Wounded Knee. The men with me are
warriors who have taken many scalps, but they are not
on the warpath now. They have come here only to talk,
and to prevent their brethren of the Sioux tribe from
throwing away their lives in a hopeless fight with the
great chief of the palefaces and his soldiers.”

The hostiles grunted again, for they were still very
‘dubious.

Suddenly, as they hesitated, Louis rose to his feet,
threw to the ground the buffalo robe which had been
wrapped around his splendid, athletic figure, snatched
his tomahawk from his belt, and waved it around his
head until it made a circle of flashing light.

“Harken to me, braves of the Sioux, and give heed to .
my words!” he cried, in a voice of thunder. ‘I am a chief
of the tribe, and I do not say twice that which is in my
heart. If you will be at peace with mé and my friends,
and take us to your camp, so that we may talk with the
chiefs, it is well. If you will have war, it is still well.

 

 
 

 

glances.

. THE BUFFALO

Ye are many, and we are few, but we will fight you as
best we may, and our scalps shall not be easily taken.”

At these daring words, all the friendlies sprang to their
feet and seized their guns, ready to sell their lives Be
if need were.

But when it came to the point, the hostiles were not
anxious to fight.

An old warrior, who had been on many warpaths and
taken part in many councils of the tribe, rose to his feet
and stepped in between the two parties, just as they
seemed about to engage in deadly combat.

“Our brother speaks truly,” he said. “Dog does not
eat dog. _The Sioux have, many enemies, and they must
not oe each other.
camp.’

‘Some of the hostiles scomded savagely at this announce-
oe but Louis affected not to notice their threatening
The old warrior was a man in authority, and
his decision was final, however mich some of his fol-
lowers might not like it.

The ponies were soon caught and saddled up, and the

two parties, mutually suspicious of one another, rode
swiftly toward the fortress of the hostiles assembled un-

der the leadership of Short Bull.

appearance and volcanic otigin.

The country through which they passed was of ee
Great fissures yawned
on all sides, with limestone bluffs and steep precipices
here and there. The trees became stunted as the caval-
cade advanced, and the grass, which had been so lux-
uriant in the lower valleys, disappeared altogether.

Finally all vegetation vanished, and there remained’

nothing but a series of precipitous peaks, deep valleys,

and horrible pits that suggested the road to the infernal
regions.

A more fitting place to entrap an army of white troops
and massacre them could not possibly have been found,

thought Louis, as he rode along, taking caretul note of |

all he saw.
-, Here and there, broader valleys afforded a stunted

growth of grass for the ponies, without which the hostiles
could not possibly have waged a campaign, but those fer- -

tile spots were at great distances apart and of small

exient.

The country was full of splendid places for ambus-
cades—little amphitheaters, as it were, with but one nar-

row entrance, the sides of which were so rugged and

_well hidden with bush. as to form perfect hiding places
for lurking savages.

x

_ The natural fort in which the hostiles fad ae refuge

could not be approached except through about five miles

of such country as this on every side.

‘The army that. attempted to enter ok a place. ae

out two or three hundred good scouts to look. carefully

into every nook and corner would surely have been

. doomed. Shangraux. had wondered why the white gen-

We will take you with us to the

DILL STORIES. /

eral had hesitated to attack the hostiles, but now he un-
derstood. oe

About a mile fo om ake fort the entire party , was halicd
by vigilant sentries, and Short. Bull himself, the chief of
the hostiles, advanced to find out the business | of the
friendlies, me

He was soon satehed with the story told to him ie
Louis, and said he would be glad to hold a council, i
company with the other chiefs, although he had no fe
that a war with the palefaces.could be averted.

As-they advanced toward :the fort, the hali- heed cane o

had time to look about and take careful note of the inside

and outside of the stronghold.

- The camp-was established on a plateau about a hun-
dred and fifty feet above the surrounding valleys. There
was only one place by which it could be entered, and that
place was only twenty feet wide. The surrounding peaks
towered higher than the little plateau on which the camp
was pitched, but these peaks, being perpendicular and
running up to sharp points, could not Le be occupied
by a body of attacking’ soldiers.

The road leading to the fort was of shelving rock, and
as it approached the top it was very narrow and shel ving.
It would be very difficult for an assaulting party to charce
up this shelving rock, and even if they gained the top,
in the face of the murderous fire that would be poured
down upon them, they would be checked by a strong
breastwork thrown across the entrance.

Trenches were everywhere to be seen, and near the en-
trance they were more than ten feet deep and very wide.
On the further side from the entrance there were two
places where the hill sloped at a sharp incline up which
no man could climb, but down which the Indians might
slide in safety if they were compelled to retreat.

sAll the other sides of the plateau were as straight as
a wall. Some rifle pits had been excavated on the hills
near at hand, and the Sioux, taking advantage of these,
might harass the. soldiers, should the latter gain entrance
to the camp. :

hen Shangraux saw that the fortress was an
almost impregnable place—one of the strongest he had
ever seen in all his experience of borden warfare.

It was garrisoned, so far as he could see, by only about -
two hundred and fifty men, but he had not the least doubt,

from his knowledge of his people, that they would die in

their tracks before they left it, and would be able to
account for many hundred white soldiers before they
were whipped. He saw that, if war could not be pre-

: vented, the only way to assault the oe with ay

hope of success was by cannon.

Under cover of little caves dug in the banks, there
were tons of jerked beef. Every warrior had at least
three full cartridge belts, and some had more. ‘They also

chad, Joading tools by means of which they’ could” reload

 
 

a : THE BUFFALO

the old shells of their cartridges. There were two good
springs of water right inside the. fort.

Evidently it was hopeless to think of starving the little
garrison, for they had all the food, water and ammunition
they were likely to need. |

Unless enough troops were sent ‘to thoroughly sur-
round the natural fortress, and that would mean the em-
ployment of a large army, they would be able to raid
the cattle ranches to the south of their stronghold, and
supply their needs from time to time, however long the
siege, besides lifting many paleface scalps to encourage
them in their resistance.

Short Bull was a military genius of the highest order,

so far as his own kind of savage warfare was concerned.
He had organized his camp to stand a prolonged siege,
and had admirably chosen it as the rallying point for a
long and desperate campaign.
When he entered the fortress, Louis saw that there
were many lodges pitched around the plateau. The
squaws and men came forward to greet him and his
party, and most of them seemed very friendly. They
supposed at first that they had come to join their ranks,
but when they learned what their mission really was they
grew suspicious and refused for some time to have any-
thing to do with them.

The chiefs, however, were of a different mind and ex-
pressed their readiness to hold a council and hear the
words of the great chief of the white soldiers.

 

CHAPTER ttl.
TACING DEATH BY THE COUNCIL FIRE.

Just before the council began, the chief medicine man

and his assistants came forward and announced that there
would be a dance—one of the same ghost dances that
had been causing all the trouble.

Braves flocked at once from all parts of the camp,
formed a circle round the “sacred tree’ which was the
central point of all the ceremonies, and began their chant.

Of all the wild dancing that Louis had ever seen, and,
being of Indian blood, he had naturally seen much of it,
this was the wildest. It was far worse than that which
Lariat Larry and Buffalo Bill had witnessed together
when the craze first seized on the redskins..

The braves were like maniacs after they had chanted.

and danced for a few minutes. They went into trances
by the dozen, and kept the priests busy telling their sup-

posed experiences during these brief trips to the spirit

land, Of course, the wily old medicine men told what-
ever they liked—whatever would support their frenzied
desire for war with the white men.

They. knew very. well that. when the Gio ea peace-
ably on their reservations and became civilized, their own
power, founded on’ ignorance and superstition, would be
gone. Therefore, it was to their interest to a all i in their
power fo promote war.

BILL STORIES.

/

It did not take Louis long to see that the dance would
delay the holding of the council for a long while, and
perhaps prevent it from being held at all that day.

Some of the more fanatical of the dancers remained in
their trances for hours, and were so exhausted when they
recovered their senses that they could not even stand.

People were so excited that they trembled all over,
their eyes rolled, and every muscle in their faces twitched.
They were certainly the most crazy Indians that Shang-
raux and his comrades, who did not catch the excitement,
had ever beheld.

Short Bull was among the braves who went into the
trance state, and his trance was one of the longest and
most serious of all. |

The priests did not speak for him as they an for the
others, perhaps fearing his vengeance when he should
recover and hear what he was supposed to have seen.
But he spoke for himself as he was passing out of the
trance state, and his words had a es effect on the
already maddened redskins.

“I see Great Wakantanka coming from the west to
speak with his children and lead them,” he cried, his eyes
staring widely with the vacant. look of the temporarily
insane. “He is riding in a wagon drawn by two mules,
but it does not roll over the prairie like other wagons.
It is carried along on a cloud of fire, and Great Wakan-
tanka is in the midst of the flame. He looks like a black
man. No—lI see him again, and he is a great chief of the
Sioux, dressed in his war paint and with a tomahawk in
his hand. Wait—lI see him for the third time, and now .
he is a white man. He carries a gun. What is the mean-
ing of the dream, my people?”

“T can tell you that, O ye foolish ones!” cried Louis,
striding boldly into the center of the circle in which the
braves were sitting. “It is a warning sent to you by the -
Great Manitou that you are not to fight any more. You
are to live at peace with the white man and hunt the
buffalo and till ae ground instead of going on the war-
path.

“Are there not legends in our ae that many cen-
turies ago, in the days of our most ancient ancestors, the
red men drove the black men out of this country and
took it for themselves? That was why the red man ap-
peared as Wakantanka after the black man in Short
Bull’s dream. The white man came third, and that was
for a signal that the white men will take away our land
and destroy us utterly unless we live in peace.”

“It is not so that I interpret the dream,” cried Short
Bull, springing to his feet and waving his tomahawk
angrily. “The Great Manitou has sent us a warning
that the palefaces want to seize our lands and wipe the
name of our tribe from the face of the earth, even as
our forefathers did to the black men, Shall. we endure
this? The Great Manitou tells us this, so that we may
be able to fight when the time comes, having. made ready.

 

 
   

 

 

  

.

We are men and warriors—not slaves to crouch under
the heel of the white man.”

This speech was much to the taste of the people, and
was wildly applauded by squaws and braves alike.

Louis saw with sadness that the hearts of his people
were indeed set on war, and that it was useless to try
to reason with them while they were in their present
frame of mind.

The dancing went on without stopping for nearly
thirty hours. When one set of dancers got tired, their
places were taken by a fresh set.

At last, on the following day, Short Bull called a halt,

and said that he was ready to hold the council and talk

with the peace commissioners as to the terms offered by
iL white chief.
More than.twenty chiefs and medicine men took part
in the conference, which lasted all day, speech after
speech being made by the long-winded Indian orators,
but all of them to much the same effect.

Louis and his friend, No Neck, were alone in their
plea for peace. All the other chiefs wanted war.

“Come back to the reservation, my people,”
Louis, ‘and the great white chief will forgive you. The
tribe will live happily and at peace. The squaws will not
_ have to.sing the song of mourning for slain warriors, and
there will not be many orphans in our lodges. The
white chief will give you blankets for the winter and
rations for the days when the snow covers the ground
and there is bad hunting.”

“But will the white men let us go on dancing the ghost
dance?” demanded Short Bull.

“No,” replied Louis, boldly. “That alone ye must not
do, for they know that it makes you mad. It makes you
_ long to’go on the warpath and take many scalps.”

_ The Indians smoked in silence for a few moments, evi-
dently weighing this speech, and then Short Bull arose,
and replied:

~ “You have heard the words of our ie others from the
agency camp,” he said. “They wish us well; but what
they say is useless. They admit that the Gteat White
Father and his officers will not let us dance. If he would
do so, then I would be in favor of returning and living in
peace. But even if Louis told us he would, how could
we trust his words. We have been lied to so many times
by the white agents that now we believe nothing we are
told.

“If we return, the white soldiers will take away our
guns and our war ponies. They will hang some of us
for taking the scalps of the settlers, and put others in
jail for stealing cattle. It is better to stay here and die,
if die we must, rather than lose our liberty.

“We are free now, and we have plenty of jerked beef,
and we ¢an dance all the time in honor of Great Wakan-
tanka, as he has commanded us to do. We tell you,
Louis, to return to the white chief of the soldiers and tell

TEE BUEBPALO

where there is much buffalo and elk.

pleaded

\

  

 
  

BIG STORING go ie

him that the Sioux are not going ‘to comé in.
wants us, he will have to come and fetch us.”

There were grunts of approval all round the circle by
the council fire at these words, ‘but ae Neck, Te ve
retorted:

“Think, O my people! how foolish is this action! It
is so that children might act, but not wise men and
warriors who know when a fight is hopeless. Have we
not fought against the whites many times—ay, and our
fathers and their fathers?) Was not victory always with
the white men in the end, even if we took the scalps ofa
few of their people at first?

“Tf you will now come in, all will’ be well; but if you,
remain out here all of you will surely be killed, and our
tribe will be only the shadow of itself.”

“And if all you say is true, what then?’ Short Bull
replied, scornfully. “We are not afraid to die. A man
can die but once, and then, if he is a brave warrior, he
passes to the happy hunting grounds of his fathers,
Is it not better,
my brothers, to die here like brave men, as the Great
Manitou wills, then to live on the agency like squaws,
with our rifles and horses taken away from us?

“No; we will not return! If we dance, as the Great
Manitou has commanded, the bullets of thé soldiers will
fall harmlessly to the ground and have no power to hurt
So it has been revealed to me and to others in a
dream. Even the armies of the Great White Father are
not powerful enough to contend with Great Wakantanka,
and, therefore, we are not afraid to remain. here.”

This was the final word for that day, and the council
broke up soon afterward. The ghost dance was soon.
resumed, and for two days the hostiles would not have
any words with the friendlies. But on the third day the
last council was held, lasting from morning till evening.

Us.

Louis used all the arguments in favor of peace that
he could think of, and they were not without some effect.

_ His success, indeed, nearly cost him his life.

‘Toward the close of the council, a noted chief, named~
Two Strike, arose and said that he meant to go back to
the reservation with the friendlies, accompanied by all.
the braves who acknowledged his leadership, to the
number of about fifty.

Two Strike had been a leader in the ghost dance, and
had spoken in favor of war at the first ‘conference, so
that his desertion was a great triumph for Louis.

But hardly had Two Strike ended ‘his announcement
before another chief, named Crow Dog, sprang to his
feet and said that he also would return.

The defection of two such prominent men ee
Short Bull. He saw that he must stop the breaking up
of the force at once, or there ‘was no saying to what
leneths it might not go. He might soon be left with only
a few of the most fanatical braves who were completely
under the influence of the medicine men.

\

   
 

c

THE BUFFALO

1

“At stich a tine as’ this,” he cried, “we must stick fo-
géther like brothers. Two Strike+—Crow Dog!—you
are great warriors. Your honor is spotless. Do not

stain it now by deserting us.”

“The man who says my honor is stained shall feel the
of my tomahawk,” declared Two Strike, proudly.
“T shall do as I please, and my mind is made up to re-
It is not deserting you, for the war has not yet

lf you ee Short Bull, : am ready to fight

edge
are

The crafty chieftain of the hostiles did not respond to
this challenge. He was brave, like all of his tribe, but he
knew that if he fought Two Strike, there would be no
hope. of winning back the men whom Louis had con-
verted, and a general battle on the spot would become
certain. 7 e

“Nay, I have no quarrel with you, my brother,” he
said, smoothly, turning to Two Strike with a courteous
gesture. “But I fear for you, and for those who will go
with you. These renegade Sioux from the agency are
not telling the truth. They will lead you back to the
agency, and there you will be placed in jail, if not hanged
after the brutal fashion of the whites,”

Two Strike and Crow Dog jooked very serious at this
speech. Louis was about to reply hotly, but Short Bull
followed up the advantage he had gained without a mo-
ment’s pause.

“Louis, the renegade, is at the bottom of this affair!”
he yelled. . “There may be Sioux blood in his veins, but
his heart is white. “He is the spy of the big chief of the
white soldiers. I know he is a traitor to the tribe. Kill
him! Kill him!”

This futious cry had an instant effect.
up by several of the braves.

Short Bull ran to the place where the guns had been

It was taken

stacked during the holding of the council, in accordance ,

with Indian custom, and ae his own rifle from the
pile.

Several of the young and more hot- Byes men fol-
_ lowed his example.

As soon as they had armed themselves, they sur-
rounded Shangraux and his friends.

Louis’ position was now desperate, indeed. He had
no weapons, for he had left them all behind when he came
to the council. Besides, even if he had been armed, he
would not have lifted his hand to slay a member of his
own tribe at the council fire—an act accounted as das-
tardly as. cowardice, oe to Indian ways of
thinking. :

“He knew that the ‘maddened men might kill- him at
the slightest resistance, even though they would be dis-
graced by the act; so he laughed at them as good-
-naturedly as he could under the trying circumstances,

BILL STORIES.

and told them to put-up their guns, for he was their
friend, instead of their enemy.

Some of the older and wiser men of Short. Bull’s
party rushed in front of the would-be murderers and

appealed to them not to kill their own people.
“No,

,

we cannot let the friendlies return!” cried the
young men., “If we do not kill them, we must at least
force them tO remain with us. They will tell the big
chief of the white soldiers all they have seen, and he will
know how to enter our camp when he marches against
us!”

It looked as if a massacre of Louis’ party, together
with those who had joined them, was inevitable.

Some of the desperate young braves rushed forward
with clubbed guns, intending to beat out the brains of
the objects of their enmity. Others cocked their Win-
chesters and actually fired a few shots, which, however,
had no effect, because the older men; who were trying to

calm them, knocked up the barrels of their guns. -

It looked for some little time as if Louis, No ‘Neck,
Two Strike and Crow Dog would surely lose their lives.

Crow Dog showed in this moment of supreme peril
that he had the qualities of a brave man and a great
chief. ,

As the infuriated braves crowded round him and de-
manded that he should change his mind and stay in the
fort, he replied:

You can kill me if you want to, but that is the only
way you will stop me from going. I am not afraid to
die, but I am afraid to kill a brother of my tribe.”

ONT

Crow Dog, after these words, sat calmly on the ground
while the storm raged about him, and drew his blanket
over his head. es

As he truly said, he was not afraid, but he admitted
afterward that he expected to be tomahawked or shot at
any moment, and he did not wish to know the person
who should commit the dastardly act of killing a brothe:
Sioux.

Several of the young men had to be knocked down
and deprived of their guns before the older braves could
restore order in the council. | : :

Then Short Bull saw that he had played his last card

aitd lost the trick, so he sullenly, walked away to his
lodge.

Next morning the friendlies ota taking © swith
them nearly half of the garrison of the camp.

All efforts to induce Short. Bull and the rest to accom-
pany them proved to be in vain, and as they rode away.
from the camp they heard frantic. shrieks and the loud
beating of drums, by which they knew that the ghost
dance had been started once again.

 

 
 

THE BUPPALO

Cr Nea Ve
STORMING THE SIOUX STRONGHOLD.

Louis and his comrades were warmly welcomed Shen
they returned to the general’s headquarters. The other
two Sioux chiefs and their followers were received with
honor and returned to their old homes at’ the agency.

Louis told Buffalo Bill and the general of the efforts
he had made for peace, and of the fixed intention of
Short Bull and his braves to fight.

But he would not tell anything about the strength of
the camp that would help the soldiers in oe fight, nor
would any of the other redskins.

They had been accused of being spies and traitors,
but without the slightest ground. While they were
ready to do all they could to preserve their tribesmen
from a foolish war, they would not fight against them,
nor would they help the white soldiers to defeat them by
any other means. They stood ‘aside from the combat,
giving both sides a fair field and no favor.

Fortunately, the general had sent Buffalo Bill and
other scouts out to investigate the nature of the strong-
hold the Indians had selected, and from their reports he
got a pretty fair idea of the difficulty of the task he had
before him,

Although Louis had taken away nearly half of the
garrison with him, the scouts found out on the following
day that a party of braves fifty strong had ridden in
from a neighboring tribe, and thus brought up the
strength of Short Bull’s little army.

Buffalo Bill, Lariat Larry and their comrades were
kept very busy, day after day, watching the Indians,
while the general completed his preparations to take the
fied against them. |

- “Tt will be one of the toughest fights we have ever
hea the border king warned him. “The redskins are.
absolutely crazy, and their fort is the strongest and best
arranged that you ever saw. It is hopeless to try to take
it without artillery, unless you are Pieates to lose three
or four hundred men, if not more.’

“No, I eertainly am not,’ethe general replied. “ive

sent for three mountain machine guns, and as soon as
they arrive we will attack Short Bull and his followers.”

The guns came two days later, and the following
mofning, soon after daybreak, the bugle cailed the men
to arms,

Three hundred troopers fell in, happy as schoolboys
_ at the prospect of taking part in a fight, after waiting for
several weary weeks in the hope of having one.

Besides the soldiers, there were about fifty ranchers
and scouts who had come in from the settlements round
about and volunteered to join the party.

The Indians, their numbers swollen by more recruits
to Short Bull’s standard, had already started to raid
lonely ranches and burn, slay and torture. Consequently,
the settlers were eager for revenge.

PILL STORIES. ve

Their always smoldering hatred of the redskins had
been stirred into a blaze by the sight of the burned houses
and the bodies of the slaughtered men left in the wake
of the redskins’ raids. They knew full well thatewhat_
had happened to some of their neighbors might very well
happen to themselves and their families if the Indians
were not punished with a stern hand.

The little army was a formidable one, in view of the
fact that all the troopers were picked men, while the
frontiersmen were splendid shots and experienced in all
the tricks of Indian warfare. They were all fearless
fighters, and most of them had fought the redskins more
than once before.

But although he had such a fine little force under his
command, the general could not he!p feeling uneasy as to
what the outcome of the struggle would be.

The Sioux, according to the reports he had received
from his scouts, were now much more numerous than
they were at the time of Shangraux’s visit, and their
g-eat superiority of position gave them an advantage
that was worth at least six to one in mere numbers.

Unfortunately, the general had beens forced to send
out so many other expeditions to defend isolated settle-
ments and chastise distant tribes which had joined in the
ghost-dance craze, that he found himself left with too
few men to surround the fortress of Short Bull.

With his small army, he could do nothing but try to
carry it by storm, and that seemed, indeed, a forlorn
hope, which could only be realized by dint of the most
desperate heroism.

The rugged, voleanic country through which Louis
had passed, and which he had thought admirably adapted
for ambuscades, was crossed with the greatest possible
caution, almost every man in the force acting as a scout
for the time being.

~ Under the command of T affalo Pill, the advance guard
cleared the rocks and rugged hillsides of several lurking
bodies of Indians, who would have caused heavy loss to
the column if their presence had not been ee in
good time.

It was late in the afternoon when they came in sight
of the fort, and, following the advice of Buffalo Bill, the
eeneral decided to halt and pitch camp for the night.
The fort would have to be very carefully reconnoitered
before an assault was made, :

A double cordon of sentries was placed around the
can.p that night, several of them being frontiersmen.

During the night these sentries saw camp fires blazing
away up on the mountain, but no attack was made upon
them, and toward dawn some of them relaxed their
vigilance. :

Thus it was that, shortly before daylight broke, the
border king saw a figure creeping through the grass
toward the camp fire beside which the general was sleep-
ing, wrapped up in his military cloak and a blanket.

 
 

12 | | THE BUFFALO
eae Bill had not: sie it, for he realized
- that the soldiers were not ona enough
dian were concerned.
The figure in the grass, as he saw after a few seconds’
silent watching, was that of a redskin brave.
A knife shone in his hand, as the bright-moonbeams
fell upon the blade. :
His purpose was plain ene to guess. He wanted
the honor of taking the scalp of the big chief of the pale-
faces before the battle opened on the morrow, and he
ae have achieved his evil design had not the king of
he scouts fortunately happened to,be on the watch.
Stealthily and silently, the Indian wormed his way
through the long grass. Not one of the sentries noticed
him, and he made no more noise than a snake would have
done,

q
As he

sentries where

which the officer
from the
erass upon his arm and looked carefully around. But
he did not see the king of ‘the scouts, who had thrown
himself down in the grass just behind him.

Satisfied that all was well, the Indian gave a little
grunt of pleasure, bent over the sleeping officer, and
raised his knife to strike the fatal blow.

The blow never fell.

With a bound like that of a tiger, Buffalo Bill was
upon the brave, with one hand clutching his wrist and
the other his throat.

Taken by surprise, the Indian cone offer no resistance.

His knife was wrenched out of his hand in a moment,
and the breath nearly choked out of his body by the
flerce grip upon his throat.

reach nea the camp fire beside

was sleeping, he ‘ra ised himself cautiously

Gasping in his agony, and with his face turning the
color of purple, the brave sank to the ground, limp and
helpless. In a trice the border king had him tightiy
bound,

The affair happened so ay and silently that the
general did not even stir in his sleep, although the two
struggling men were only a foot or two away from him.

When Buffalo Bill awoke him and told him what had
happened, he tried to make the Indian speak and tell him
what the strength of Short Bull’s army and position
were. But the captive, wrapping himself in the stolid
silence habitual to his race when in such circumstances,
. would not answer a word. Threats and promises alike
- failed to move him. _

Early in the morning, a small party of redskins rode
dey n from the natural fort and approached near to the
camp, which they carefully reconnoitered. .Cody went
out against them with thirty scouts and troopers at his
back, and soon drove them in headlong flight back to
their p6sition.

The border king bd his men pursued them hotly, and
there was some fighting at long range, in which three of
' the redskins were shot and a trooper slightly wounded;

BILE STORIES,

but the real encounter between the two little armies did
not begin until after eight o’clock in the morning.

The general tried to tempt the Indians to come out of
their fort and fight him in the open, but Short Bull was
too cunning a leader to give up his great advantage of
position.

Accordingly, after the men had had their breakfast,
the general decided that he must advance to the attack
himself, even if the risk was a great one, or go back and
confess failure—which would have a disastrous effect on
the tribes that had not already broken out into revolt.

The general, therefore, led the whole of his force of
troopers up the steep path of shelving rock, taking a
side track sheltered by bushes, which Buffalo Bill ha
discovered, for a part of the distance. '

As soon as they came within range, the well-armed
Indians on the plateau above opened a sharp fire on them
from behind their barricades of bowlders.

Several men of-the attacking force speedily dropped,
either dead or wounded; but Buffalo Bill charged up to
the front with the body of frontiersmen at his back, and
saved the momentary check from becoming a serious re-
pulse.

Under cover of the steady, accurate volleys of the
scouts, the redskin fire-lessened, for the Indians were
afraid to show even a leg or an arm. The troopers
lifted their wounded comrades and carried them out of
range, where they were left with the men who were tak-
ing care of the horses. :

The general, taking advanta age of the slackening fire
of the Indians, had the mountain guns brought ey
into action.

It was impossible to take them to the top of the peaks
that overlooked the fort, for, as Louis Shangraux had
supposed, they were inaccessible. But Buffalo Bill

found a way by which they could be dragged up the side.

of the hill for some distance to a position from which

they could rake the opening leading to the plateau with

good. effect,

They did so much execution when they first opened

fire that the redskins at once fled from the front line of

the barricades across the entrance. ‘The bowlders which
they had piled up, big though they were, could not pro-
tect them against the shells which hissed round their
ears from the deadly artillery.

The Indians had not expected to have machine guns

brought against them, and they were terrified at first by
those unfamiliar instruments of slaughter.

Then, too, they saw with dismay that Short Bull and

the medicine men had lied to them when they said that
the bullets of the soldiers would fail harmlessly to the
ground and that no man would be hurt who wore a
medicine shirt and had joined faithfully in the ghost
dance. All around them, their dead and wounded com-

 
“where he
SETOOpers

 

rades gave ghastly
Pllehood

But the panic was only brief. The natural courage of
the Sioux, strengthened by the long and rigorous train-
ing through which every brave had passed, soon came to
their aid, and they rallied and manned the barricades
again, taking good gare, however, not to expose them-
selves any more than they could help to the fire of the.
machine guns.

testimony to the .enormity of the

Two charges were made up the steep path, but the
troopers and their frontier allies were driven back both
times, with considerable loss. From behind their strong
barricades, the redskins were able to shoot down Aheir
attackers with a great advantage of position.

Cody had been right when he anticipated that the fight
would be one of the stiffest he had ever taken part in.

The general, maddened by the sight of his men being
shot down as if they were so many sheep, ordered the
machine guns to be advanced to the very front, and to
peur their shells into the ranks of the Indians at close
range. ;

It was a risky business, for the enemy might have
captured the guns with a vigorous sally, if they had been
enough and ready to lose a number of men for the

\

quick
purpose. e

This, however, was not redskin nature. To charge
right up to the muzzies of those terrible weapons, which
were sending their leaden messengers of death tearing
through and through their ranks, was too much for the
courage and resolution of the pluckiest of the braves.

c

They were courageous and ready to meet death, if

necessary, but that particular kind of bravery could only ©

be looked fom from the finest of disciplined troops.
* As the machine guns poured their shot and shell into
ue defenses, the Indians had erected, a chorus of terrible
irieks and yells showed plainly that great execution was
bets done.
_ Hey: fell back once more from the entrance to the
pateau, and Buffalo Bill’s eagle eye saw that the mo-

~ment for a decisive blow had come at last.

ee, then, lads!” he yelled, at the top of his voice,
orvetting, in his excitement,

g, that he had no right to take
command; “up at them as Be as you know how! One
cood charge’and we'll get inside~and have them at our
mercy !”

The king of the scouts never called upon men to go
would not lead them. Now, quickly as the
and frontiersmen swarmed to the attack, he was
the first to spring up the steep slope and race toward’ the
ene weak point of the defenses.

Swinging his rifle around his head as though it were
a club, he rushed without the slightest hesitation up that
narrow path which had been stained with the blood of
so many of his gallant comrades. The hot fire of the

+

: THE BUFFALO BILL STORIES, _ oe

Indians, who now swarmed back to their posts, did not
make him falter or swerve for a moment. |

Lariat Larry, Wild Bill and Nick Wharton were close
at his heels, and the brave troopers did not hang back.

The king of the scouts seemed to bear a charmed life
as.he rushed up that narrow avenue of death. Dozens
of bullets were fired at him at closé range, but they all
failed to hit him.

Buffalo Bill’s luck had been a proverb on the frontier

for many years, but it was never shown in a more strik-

ing manner than that day.

Several bullets whistled past his head so close that he
could feel their wind, and one even tore through his wav-
while another hit the stock of his rifle and
But he was not even touched, although several
hed the

ing hair,
broke it.
of those who followed him fell before they reac
line of barricades.

Cody placed one hand on the
bowlders and vaulted over it with the ease of a ski'le
athlete
over it as easily as a boy would jump a low stile.

The danger, however, was not over when he got inside
the line of defense. On the contrary, it was only just
beginning. Uae

Cody came down right in the midst of a score of yell-
ing braves, who darted at him from every side.

For a few moments, he had to fight them alone, hand
to hand, for in the mad rush up the slope he had out-
distanced even his gallant and active comrade, Lariat
Larry.

He threw his shattered rifle at the head of the nearest
brave, as he rushed at him with uplifted tomahawk, and
the man staggered back with blood streaming from his
face. The heavy breech of the rifle had caught him
squarely in the mouth. |

Then, quick as a flash, Cody drew his two revolvers
from his belt and began to blaze away at the warriors
who hemmed him in on all sides, firing more rapidly than
the machine guns had been doing.

Three of the Sioux fe!l to the ground, shot dead, and
a fourth reeled back, mortally wounded; but the others

rn

top of the wall of!

a

The wail was as high as his chest, but he got

closed in, not the least daunted

lt would have been the last fight of the border king if,
just as he put his back to the wall and prepared for the
onslaught of half a dozen braves, his comrades had not
come to his rescue.

“Several of them jcame piling over the barricade to-
gether, but Lariat Larry was the man who shot down
Short Bull at the very moment he was in the act of
flinging his tomahawk at the head of the border king.

The Sioux chieftain was famous for his deadly skill
with that terrible weapon.

He had never been known to miss his aim, but he did
so now for the first time.

As he had the hatchet poised above his head, Lariat -

 
 

Bh THE BUFFALO

Larry pulled the trigger of his revolver, and the. bullet
struck the Sioux in the center of the forehead.
Killed almost instantaneously, the redskin spun round

on his heels like a top, and then fell to the ground and ©

expired, with a little, gasping cough.

The tomahawk flew from his hand as he fell, but it
shivered into pieces. harmlessly against the hard stone
of the barricade wall.

The hand-to-hand combat that followed was desperate
and bloody beyond description, bu. it was not long be-
fore the Sioux were driven back and hopelessly beaten.

Their cause had been lost from ae moment the barri-

_ cade was stormed.
Step by step, the Indians were nce back. Their
- comrades hastened to their help from every point of the
camp, but the troopers and scouts also swarmed up the
slope and poured by the score into the fortress.

The fight was confined for some Hoss to the: nar-
-row entrance to the plateau.

In that small space, three hundred men were soon
ets uggling, not only hand to hand, but literally breast to
breast—so closely were they packed together. It was
eas ecely. possible to find room to swing a tomahawk or
1

vel a revolver.

:ariat Larry was. jammed against three Indians, but
a fully half a minute he could not lift a hand against
them, or they against him,

One of the braves had a knife in his right hand, but
he could not lift it and, plunge it into the young scout’s
breast, as he struggled to do, his eyes blazing with the
savage lust of battle.

Larry kicked at a wounded redskin, who had caught
lim by the heel, and made the fellow release his hold.
‘hus he got a second’s breathing space, a foot of freedom
in the press, and he took the chance to lift his six-shooter.

Then it was all over with the redskins who were opposed
to him. One by one they rapidly bit the dust before
they had time to use their knives or tomahawks.

Buffalo Bill, meanwhile, forcing his way through the
mass of Indians who tried to bar his path, had come
face to face with the man who had instigated the whole
trouble and been responsible for the terrible slaughter
of that day—-Cunning Fox, the head medicine man of the
tribe.

_ This villain had been skulking on the outside abe of
the fight, behind his dupes, who had fought so bravely,
even after they had discovered the falsity of his promises
that they would not be hurt by the bullets of the white
men.

He held in his hand a smoking revolver, which he had
been firing at random into the mass of struggling figures.

As he came’face to face with the border king, he
. screamed in insane terror and turned to, flee. But he
saw in a moment that he could not. escape, so he whirled

BILL STORIES.

around again and pointed the revolver point-blank at the
head of the king of the scouts.

The trigger clicked, but there was no answering flash.

The revolver was empty. The desperate impostor bad
fired his last shot uselessly into the crowd.

His face turned pale beneath his bronze as he realized
this, but almost instantly his insane hate of the white
man swept over him like a flood. He would die cheer-
fully, coward though he was, if only he could kill the
white man who, more than any other, had wrecked his
ambitious schemes by winning the fight that day.

With a cry of rage, he flung away his useless weapon
and drew a knife from his belt. His teeth showing in a

savage snarl like that of a mad dog, he rushed at Buffalo .
» Bil

Before his arm could descend and stab, the king of the
scouts caught it in his muscular grip, and forced it over
with a mighty effort until the elbow bone snapped as if
it were a pipe stem.

The medicine man sank to the ground, screaming with
rage and pain, and a second later his brains were blown
out by a shot from the carbine of one of the troopers,
who had followed close on the heels of Buffalo Bill.

The redskins had by this time been utterly routed.

Scores of them had been slain, and the rest had either
sullenly surrendered themselves as prisoners or had fled
down the rocky slides which gave them a way of escape
from the plateau.
completely broken, but at a heavy cost. _

The remnant, who had escaped to the bush, in which the
troopers could not follow them, were so cowed and hope-
less that they might almost have been disregarded. Buf-
falo Bill, from his deep experience of redskin nature,
had not the slightest doubt that they would soon send
in to the general to beg for forgiveness from the “Great
White Father’ and ask terms of peace.

CHAPAER  *V..
AN ENFORCED MASSACRE.

The surmise of the border king turned out to be well
founded.

The ceneral pitched his camp at Wounded Knee and
awaited re-enforcements, which soon arrived.

During the next few days several small parties of
Indians came out and surrendered; but Short Bull still
remained out in the Bad Lands with some of the hostiles,
and seemed to have no intention of giving up his hope-
less struggle against the overwhelming power of the
white men,

The signal victory, loveven had the good effect of
nipping the rising in the bud. Some of the neighboring
tribes, which had shown an intention to go on the war-
path, speedily changed their minds, laid down their arms
and went back to their reservations. w |

8

The power of the hostiles had been.

 
 

 

that he wanted a parley.

THE BUFFALO

One morning, about a week after the capture ‘of the
Sioux stronghold, Lariat Larry, who had been out scout-
ing, rode into camp with the news that he had caught
sight of a body of about a hundred Indians in full war
paint, half a day’s journey away. They seemed to be hos-
tiles, and were heading for the camp; but whether they
wanted to surrender or to fight he could not, of course,
say. ye

‘The brigadier at once ordered out a body of about
three hundred soldiers, with two Hotchkiss quick-firing
guns, to meet them on the plain. He wanted to make a
demonstration of strength that would show the redskins
the folly of resistance and make them inclined to sur-
render at once.

The band of hostiles was soon sighted by Buffalo Bill
and Larry, who rode with the force and scouted ahead.
As the troops approached, the Indians formed in a long

line of battle, scattering out on the prairie, each man a

few feet apart from his neighbors.
As. Larry had said, there were about a hundred of

them, armed with guns, knives and tomahawks, painted

with their war paint, and, apparently, all ready for the

fray. They were not the men who had helped to defend

the fort, but belonged to a distant branch of the Sioux
nation, and had only lately see bitten with the ghost-
dance madness,

But when they saw the strength of the party opposed
to them, they did not seem anxious to fight. ‘The officer
in command of the whites, a major, named Whiteside,
who had-had considerable experience of Indian fighting,
brought his men up into-battle line and was ready to
mow the redskins down directly they made a hostile
movement. — ae

~The leader of the hostiles camé spurring forward as
soon as they g@t within rifle shot, unarmed, and signaled
Dismounting, the latter walked
forward and met him, accompanied by Buffalo Bill.

The border king recognized the chief as a famous
brave, named Big Foot.

As they came forward, Big Foot extended his hand in

token of his wish for peace.

-“T am sick, and my heart is troubled for my people,”

: the chief began, in the oratorical style that the Indian

99

 

loves. “My braves here want peace, and
| But Maj . Whiteside cut him short, for he knew that a

stern front was necessary in dealing with Indians.

_ “JT won’t talk with you,” he said. “I won’t have any
patleying at all. You must either surrender uncondi-
ey or fight, Which will you do?’

- The chief hardly took a moment to consider,
“We would have done so
We could, not

‘WWe-surrender,” he said.
before now, but we could not find you.
find any’ soldiers to surrender to.”
whispered Buffalo Bill.

“Take care of him,’ (itis

“quite on the cards that he may mean treachery.”

Y

BILL STORIES. ee

“He has no’ chance,’ replied a officer, ccarcleusie
“We outnumber his men by at least ‘three. to one, and

we are better armed, to say nothing of having the Hotch- —

kiss guns. He must see that it would ne oe suicide
to try on any of his tricks.”

At a signal from the chief, one of the braves raised a
white flag. In a few moments, the military -had their
prisoners surrounded, and orders were
them,

and his war pony. They glared savagely at the white
troopers when the latter demanded these things, and
Buffalo Bill hastened forward, seeing there was going
to be some serious trouble. oe Pons

He was too late to avert it. As he afterwards learned,
the old medicine man with the war party had made a last
effort to assert his power, and had told all the braves
who would listen to him that their “medicine shirts”
would be sure to save them from the bullets of the white
men, whom the Great Manitou hated.

With blind faith, they trusted him—for they had not
seen. the terrible slaughter of their brothers in the fort at
Wounded Knee—owing to their belief in the same de-
lusion. e
Standing in their midst, just as the soldiers advanced
to disarm them the medicine man took a handful of dust
from the ground and threw it into the air—the Indian
signal for battle.

From underneath their blankets: the waiting warriors
instantly drew their rifles and began firing rapidly at the
troopers, who were not more than twenty feet away.’

It is impossible to describe the anger of the soldiers at
this act of folly and treachery,. The deluded savages had
only just surrendered. THey were almost surrounded
by three times their own number of soldiers, and could be
mowed down by the terrible Hotchkiss guns. Only the
blindest and most fanatical faith in their medicine shirts
could account for their conduct—or else the feeling thet
they would rather die than part with their guns.

In a few seconds the space of a half dozen square rods

was a perfect hell of fife: More than twenty of the
soldiers fell at the first volley of their treacherous foes,
and their comrades could not return the fire without
serious danger of hitting friends instead of foes.

Some of the Indians, whose guns had already been
taken, seized knives or tomahawks, and rushed to make
‘a hand-to-hand attack.

One of these braves dashed up to Cody, Gade to
brain him with his hatchet, but the scout shot him dead
with his revolver as-he poised the weapon.

With the nerve of the true American soldier, the troop-
ers soon recovered from the shock of ‘the surprise; and
formed up their ranks, so that the danger of killing one
another was done away with. Then they poured a venge-
ful fire into the crowded ranks of the redskins.

given to disarm

Of all the things an Indian owns, he oe best his rifle

 
 

re. | THE BUFFALO

In an instant they realized their delusion, when they
saw that the “‘ghost shirt” protected them no better than
their naked skins would have done. They fell by the
dozen before that first murderous fire, and then the sur-
vivors turned and fled.

But there was no escape for them. The Hotchkiss

guns poured a leaden hail of bullets into the fleeing mass,

and soon only a few of the redskins were left alive.
These were ridden down and sabered or shot by some of
the enraged troopers, who had hastily mounted their
horses.

When the smoke of the conflict rolled away, a terrible

sight was revealed. The ground was literally covered —

with the dead and dying. Where the insane conflict had
begun, whites and redskins lay side by side, some of them
even grappled in a death embrace. It was the saddest,

and also the most senseless, of all the tragedies of Indian
warfare.

A young buck, one who had led the fight and fallen
almost at the first fire, lay mortally wounded on the
ground. Buffalo Bill and two of the troopers went up
to him to see if they could bind up his wounds, for, now
that the battle was over, the white men were doing all
they could to aid their treacherous foes.

They saw at a glance that the buck was dying, and he
knew it himself. As a last request, he asked them to lay

him beside the body of the medicine man who had given-

the signal for the fight. His request was granted, for
even Buffalo Bill did not suspect what he was going
to do.

The brave raised himself up on his left arm for a mo-
ment and glanced into the face of the dead prophet with
a look of deadly hate. Then, seizing his knife with what
strength remained to him, he plunged it two or three
times into the dead body before he could be prevented.

He was a dupe whose eyes had been opened by bitter
experience to the falsehoods he had believed, and before
he died he wished, in his brutal way, to have a brute’s re-
venge.

When the news of the fight and massacre was eee
abroad, the Indians who had gone on the warpath were
still more anxious to surrender, but nothing was heard
from Short Bull and the remnant of his band. They had
fled far into the Bad Lands, and would probably not ven-
ture from them until the time came for them to have
their usual grand buffalo hunt in the fall, in order to
_ provide themselves with jerked meat for the winter.

Cody and Lariat Larry undertook to make an expedi-
tion together into the interior of the Bad Lands and see
whether they could find out how numerous the band of
Short Bull was and what it was doing. If it was left
unwatched, it might become a center of trouble to which

all the turbulent spirits from the tribes would flock. It’

must be hunted down and stamped out before peace could
be thoroughly re-established along the border.

2

Biel STORIES:

The general was glad to let them go, but appealed to |

them to take care not to run into any more danger than
they could help. He would need them again, he said, to
lead an expedition into the Bad Lands to wipe out Short
Bull’s band as soon as they had located it and ascertained
its strength.

CHAPTER VI.
THE DUEL BY THE CAMP FIRE.

At the end of a toilsome day’s journey, about a week
later, the two scouts camped for the night near the en-
trance to a rocky canyon that was a mere narrow slit be-
tween two frowning, precipitous cliffs.

They had ranged the country far and wide, but had sO
far failed to locate Short Bull’s band, which seemed to
have disappeared off the face of the earth. .

The trail of the redskins, after they had fled from the

fort, had been carefully hidden, and it was old when the
scouts first struck it, so that, before long, even their skill
was at fault and they were reduced to searching at
random.

But they had by no means given up hope. They were
ready to search for a month, if necessary; but they were
determined not to go back to the camp without having
something worth reporting. :

For all that they knew, the Sioux might be within half
a mile, and even watching them at that moment; so they
dared not kindle a fire.

They reclined in the long grass, after eating a meager |

meal of biscuits and coffee, and smoked their pipes.
Presently Buffalo Bill said:

“Let’s take a walk to the top of that hill, old fellow,

and see if we can see anything round about.”

With that wonderful sixth sense which comes to the:

experienced scout only after long and bitter training, the

border king felt that something was going to happen

that night. There was no outward sign of danger, but

- he felt in his bones that something was wrong, and. it
would have been absolutely impossible for him to have.
rolled up in his buffalo blanket and slept comfortably.

that night.

Lariat Larry seemed to sympathize with the mood of

the king of the scouts, and he made no objection to his
proposal.

into a wide-stretching valley beyond.

Their strange intuition of danger had not misled them.
Far away in the darkness they could see a camp fire’
gleaming down in the valley. They reckoned it might

be about two miles distant,

“i guess they must be the hostiles under the command
“T.can’t think of any other.
party that is likely to be around Ls section = the

of Short Bull,” said Cody.

country.”

 

Together they toiled up to the rugged slope of : .
one of the hills overlooking the canyon, and looked down |

{

 
 

 

 

_THE BUFFALO BILL STORIES. ve vy

“What shall we do?” asked Lariat Larry. “Shall we
creep in on them now, and see if we can learn anything
of their plans, or shall we wait until the morning and
get on their trail?”

“Better do it now,” said Buffalo Bill.

They cautiously descended the hillside and crept toward
the camp fire which twinkled far ahead of them.

As they came close to it, after an hour’s careful recon-
noitering, they saw that about thirty braves were gath-
ered around it, smoking their pipes and talking of the
stirring events they had been lately going through.

They crawled cautiously through the grass, and
watched patiently for half an hour.’ Then they saw that
some of the braves were dancing the Sioux ghost dance,
while others were reclining at full length on the ground
and apparently looking on their more fanatical comrades
with contempt.

Several sentinels had been placed around the camp;
but, by careful scouting and judiciously taking advantage
of cover, the two scouts managed to dodge them and get
inside of the cordon unobserved.

When they had accomplished this task, Buffalo Bill
breathed a sigh of relief. They were now fairly safe, un-
less they were observed by some of the braves around
the fire, which was hardly likely, if they took good care
to keep under cover. It would not do to be seen, for
in that event the sentries would cut off their retreat, un-
less it were made too rapidly to give them time to take
up the alarm.

Nothing was going on around the fire except the dan-
cing, which was an old story by this time to both of the
scouts.

Taking shelter behind a ee of bushes, they’
crawled forward until they were right opposite the center
of the camp. The dance ceasec after some time had
passed, and the men gathered together and talked in low
tones. The scouts concluded that a council of war was
being held.

Among the warriors sitting around the fire was the
famous chief, Short Bull, easily to be distinguished from
the rest by the eagle’s feathers which denoted his rank,
as also by the deference paid to him by most of the
braves.

Lariat Larry drew his revolver when his eyes fell on
the noted chief, and in another moment he would have
sent a bullet through his head; but Buffalo Bill seized
his arm and made signs to him to control himself.

“ They crept nearer and nearer to the camp fire, until

they were within about ten or fifteen paces of it, Oe
hidden in a small clump of low brushwood.

They could get no nearer, for the light of the camp

fire brightly lit up the surroundings, ae there was no

other cover.
The Indians .were alone angrily fopethon and soon

their voices rose to such a pitch that the scouts, who were

a

both familiar with the Sioux tongue, could oe
hear every word they were saying.

Short Bull was denouncing the chief pouietune of the
medicine man whom Buffalo Bill had slain in the battle _
at the fort.

He said that the priests had led ie to believe Bat
they would have an easy victory over the palefaces, and.
the result had been a slaughter which had broken the
fighting power of the tribe for years, perhaps forever.

The words of the chief seemed to meet with the ap-
proval of his braves, and one after another of them de-—
nounced the lying medicine men in unmeasured language.

He stood it quietly for some time, and then he took

__ the pipe which he was smoking from between his lips, and

broke silence for the first time.

“Listen, my brothers, and pay heed to my words, for.
I do not speak with a false tongue,” he said. “Did I not
tell you that Great Wakantanka would only help brave
warriors? Did I not fight in the front of your ranks
and lead your young men? Ii all of you had fought as
well as I did we would have beaten the white soldiers,
and their scalps would now be hanging to our belts. But.
how was I to know’’—turning to Short Bull—‘that the |
hearts of the Sioux warriors have turned to water, and
that they fight as if they were women and babes?”

Half a dozen of the men sprang to their feet at this
terrible insult—the worst. that could be leveled. at an
Indian—and angrily clutched at their knives and toma-
hawks.

But the priest, in spite of the falsity of his heart, was
a brave man. He looked at the infuriated warriors with
contempt in his flashing, black eyes, put his pipe back.
into his mouth, and did not even trouble to draw the re-
volver which the watching scouts saw was in his waist
belt. ae a

“You think you have a quarrel with me?” he retorted,
in a calm voice. “So be it! We will let Great Wakan-
tanka decide between us by the ordeal of combat. Let
one of you step fotward as the champion of the rest, and
I will fight him before you all.

“Tf he takes my scalp, it is well. But u I take his,
then there must be no more railing at me—no more dis-
puting of the.commands which the Great Spirit gives to —
you through my. mouth. _ Who will accept my chal-
lenge?” 3

Three of the braves ae ieapedt to. their ca but «
one of them—a young chief, who had been loud in his —
denunciations of the false priest—was quicker than the
rest. Fae

Fe threw off his buffalo. robe and seca out into an
open space beside the fire, naked to the waist, but gor-.
geously painted with the war colors of his tribe. As he
stood in the glare of the firelight, with his right hand
resting upon the tomahawk in his belt, he looked a for-
midable foe... : cp le: i

 
THE BUFFALO

18

~The other braves drew back when they saw that he
had taken up the challenge. The scouts could see at a
glance that, although young, he must be a famous
warrior, held in great respect by his tribe.

- The medicine man looked at him for a few moments,
through half-closed eyelids, and then yawned and slowly
knocked the ashes out of the bowl of his pipe. He
seemed to be doing all he ee to show his ee of
his opponent.

~The redskins round the camp fire looked upon the
scene with breathless interest, but they were not more ex-
cited than the two scouts hidden behind the ae of
bushes.

The young chief | cevped his foot impatiently on the
eround and made a threatening motion with his toma-
hawk; and then, at last, the medicine man got up and
faced him, ready for the fight that must end in the death
of one of them, if not both.

Once upon his feet, a wonderful change came over
the priest. “When sitting down, he had seemed to be as
lazy and inert as'a hog; but now his body had become
as lithe and active as that of a mountain lion.

Unlike most of his class, he was an almost perfect
specimen of physical manhood and had his body in splen-
did condition by constant and vigorous exercise.

The two Indians stealthily crept toward one another,
gazing into each other’s eyes and waiting to take instant
advantage of the first opening.

Short Bull gave the signal for the duel to commence
by shouting the Sioux war cry.

It was instantly repeated by the two combatants, and
then the young chief rushed forward, active as a tiger,
and flung his tomahawk straight at the head of his
enemy.

Quick as he was, the medicine man’s eye was quicker.
He ducked his head just in time to escape the deadly

inissile, wre tore off one of the feathers in his head-

dress.

Before the chief could reach for his knife, he had
straightened himself up and buried his own tomahawk
deep in his skull. :

‘The duel was over in the space of a few seconds, and
the redskins were aghast at the defeat of a champion
whom they : oe one of the finest fighters in their
. tribe.

The medicine man cainity drew his knife and took the
‘ scalp of his fallen foe, although he knew that that act
would doubly enrage the spectators. It was bad enough
for one Sioux to kill another ; but to take his scalp was
a crime béyond words! ; :

The priest wished, however, to show his utter con-
tempt for his fellow tribesmen and bring them under his
heel as if they were dogs. ne

Holding the blood-stained knife ae his ‘head, and
ae the crimsoned scalp in his other hand, he cried:

BILL STORIES.

“The Great Spirit has decided! He has upheld the -
hands of his servant. I have overcome your champion!
Who will be the next among you to yield up his scalp to
the child of Wakantanka ?”

The redskins were brave men, but they shrank from
accepting this challenge. Theif superstitious fears were
aroused, and they thought that the Great Manitou was
really fighting on the side of his priest.

“I’m going to take up that challenge, Larry!” a
Buffalo Bill.

“Are you mad?”

“Not at all. I did it before, once, against a Pawnee.

-TheIndians are bound, by their laws of chivalry, not to

harm me if I go into their camp and challenge one of
them to single combat. They must let me go unharmed,
if 1 win, or be disgraced.”
_Larry knew this was the fact, and he knew, too, that it
was useless to try to dissuade Cody if the latter had made
up his mind,

Buffalo Bill rose from the cover in which he was hid-»
den and stalked boldly into the circle of the firelight, cry-
ing out in the Sioux tongue that he would take up the
challenge. !

The Indians were so amazed by his sudden appearance
that for a few moments they could not speak. They
looked as if a ghost had come among them, for nothing
was further from their thoughts than that the whites
were on their trail.

The medicine man was as astounded as the rest. He
sat down on the ground, staring open-mouthed at. the
daring paleface, and said nothing.

Cody broke the silence, after surveying the strange
scene for a moment, with a twinkle in his eye.

“Greeting, chiefs and braves of the Sioux! I have
heard the challenge and come to accept it. oe

“You know me. I am Long Hair, who has slain
many of your braves; but I fear you not, for I know you
will not disgrace yourselves and your fathers by killing
me tr eacherously. The Great Manitou would frown
upon you, and never admit you to the happy. hunting
grounds of the great hereafter. Is it not so?”

“You speak with a straight tongue, Long Hair,” re-
plied Short Bull, speaking for the rest. “There is war
between us; but if you win in this combat you can mount
your horse and ride away, and not a brave among us will
seek for your trail until the dawn.”

The other Indians nodded their assent. One of the
chief rules in their code of honor was that an enemy who
accepted the ordeal of single combat was as sacred as the
bearer of a flag of truce among white men.

Short Bull drew his own tomahawk from his belt and
handed it to the border king.

Thus arnied, Cody faced the medicine. man, who ae
by this time sprung to his feet again and gripped his

D.

%

 
 

       

   

hatchet, crimson with the blood of his vic tink of a oF
moments before.

Lariat Larry had followed his friend into the firelight,
but the Indians took no other notice of him, tacitly ac-
cepting him as the border king’s pccond in this strange
i encounter.
| Cody whispered to him: “Be on the watch, ready to

shoot in case any of the Indians tries to knife me in the
back while I am fighting him. I don’t suppose they will;

m but you never can tell with these people.” —

A Resting his hand on the six-shooter in his belt, Larry
| stood ready to defend his comrade on the instant.

The redskins formed a ring, in the center of which
were the medicine man and Buffalo Bill. The firelight
cast a red glow on the faces of the duelists as they circled
warily round and round, waiting a chance to send their
deadly tomahawks whizzing to the mark in one another's
skulls.

. This time the priest made the first attack, Ae Buffalo
Bill read his intention in his eye a second before the
tomahawk left his hand. He flung himself forward and
it passed harmlessly over his head.

Next moment the border king had cleft the skull of the
priest to the chin. No more would his false tongue mis-
‘lead his tribe! ee

The redskins broke out into grunts of involuntary ad-
_ miration as Buffalo Bill, wrenching the reddened toma-
hawk from the skull of the dead man, drew himself up to
his great height and faced them boldly, with an inquiring
look in his eye.

They made no hostile movement, for ah had no love
fcr the dead man.

  
  
   
  
    
 
  
  
  
    
  

possessed the necessary courage and skill.

‘Go in peace, Long Hair,” said Short Bull, gravely sa-
luting him, “and the young paleface with you. But
when nxt we meet it will be as foes. We will take your
scalps or torture you at the stake.”

“So be it, chief!” responded Buffalo Bill, laughing
gayly. “When you catch us, you can do as you like
' with us.”

He little thought how bitterly true the words of Short
Bull would prove to be in regard to his brave comrade.

 
   
   
 

    
  
 

  

 

 
 

CHAPTER. VEL

LARRY S LAST THROW.

   
 

The Indians were true to their word, so far as the
scouts could tell; for, during the next day, as they skir-
-mished around the oy they could see no signs of
pursuit.

The scouts were confident that if the trail was not
taken up before dawn, as Short Bull had promised, it
would be impossible to follow it; for they had taken

careful precautions to cover their tracks.

    
 
    
  

THE BUPPALO

summit of the cliff overlooking the gorge.

| The paleface had only done to him .
what they would have liked to do themselves had they

     
    

 

BIRT STORIES,

a

They were anxious to find out whether there were
other parties of hostiles in the Bad Lands besides the
one which they had encountered.

For several days they searched in vain, covering a
large tract of country, but seeing nothing of the redskins.

Late one afternoon, however, Buffalo Bill came upon
the footprints of moccasins in some soft earth leading up
to a rugged canyon.

He was alone, for Lariat Larry had ascended to the
He was to:
search there, while his comrade tramped through the
canyon.

Buffalo Bill did not care to shout to him, because he
could not tell how near the Indians might be; so he re- -
solved to follow the trail alone.

The tracks were very indistinct, for the ground was
rocky in most places; but the unerring eye of the border
king managed to follow them.

He walked up the gorge, peering cautiously in all
directions, for about half a mile; and then, turning a
sharp, rocky corner, he came suddenly upon five Indians.

They were not more than ten yards away from rae
for they had been returning on their tracks.

They saw him in the same instant he saw them, and
rushed forward to take his ace: yelling their war ve
loudly.

Buffalo Bill had only time for one shot before four of
the braves were upon him. He wounded the foremost in
the shoulder, but not badly enough to put him out of the
combat.

Clubbing his rifle, the border king fought off the four
braves, who attacked him savagely with their knives and
tomahawks.

He was slightly wounded in the arm at the first en-
counter, but he managed to keep the redskins at bay.

He saw, however, that the fifth of the redskins was _
stealing up behind him with the evident intention of -
planting his knife up to the hilt between his shoulders,

It was impossible to turn round, for he had as much
as he could do to fight off the men who were facing him.

“tie king of the scouts thought that he was fighting his
last battle; but help came suddenly to him in an entirely
unexpected manner.

His *comrade on the top of the precipice had hens the
shot, and he hastened to the edge and looked over. What
he saw made him instantly remove the lariat which he al-
ways carried round his waist, and which he trusted as a
better weapon in his skilled hands even than the rifle.

At the critical moment Lariat Larry leaned far over
the cliff and sent his lasso whirling over the head of the
redskin just as he was about to stab Buffalo Bill in the
back.

The rope tightened round the man’s neck, and Larry
instantly jerked him down with such violence that he
THE BUFFALO

80)

fractured his skull against a small rock jutting out of ny
rocky trail.

Meanwhile, Buffalo Bill dashed out the brains of one
of the redskins opposing him with the butt end of his
rifle.

The other te fought desperately, ba Larry shot one
of them from the top of the cliff, and the border king
speedily accounted for the remaining two,

Larry descended from thé top of the cliff as speedily
as he could, ready to help fight any more Indians who
might happen to be in the neighborhood; but none ap-

peared. Evidently the five who had been killed, consti-

tuted the whole pafty.

The two men held a council of war, and decided that
the general should be informed as soon as possible of all
they had discovered during their stay in the Bad Lands.

Buffalo Bill suggested that they should both return to
the military camp? but Larry urged that one had better
stay behind to keep an eye on the Sioux and convey the
latest information of their movements to the soldiers
when they came into the Bad Lands. After, some argu-
‘ment, Buffalo Bill agreed to this.

He little thought, when he did so, that he was sealing
the fate of his gallant comrade—that the clever whirl of
the lasso which had saved his life was Lariat ao s
last throw!

. They tossed up £6 sed Lae should go back t to he camp
and who should. stay in the Bad Lands.

It fell to the lot of Lariat Larry to stay.

Buffalo Bill. got back. to the camp without misadven-

ture, and while the general was making preparations to-

dispatch a small.expedition against Short Bull. and the
other hostiles, he distinguished himself by another ex-
ploit : worthy of. his great renown as the knight of the
plains. |

He went out, the same ‘day that he arrived in the camp,
and toward evening he

to scout around the country;
came upon the smoking ruins of a settler’s homestead.

It had been. raided only a few hours before by a party

Lor hostiles, who had probably made a sudden raid from
the Bad Lands. a

Half a dozen scalped and mutilated bodies lay upon
the ground, and at first the border king imagined that not
a soul had been left alive in the place.

Then he heard a feeble groan, and an. old man crawled.

out on his hands and knees from some bushes near “by, i in
which he had hidden himself,

Buffalo Bill saw at a glance that he was dying, for he

had been shot through the breast and horribly wounded

in the head with a tomahawk.

He hastened to the side of the old man and supported
his head, which was already falling back with the faint-
ness of death.

“My. daughter!” the old man managed to gasp.

“My
daughter Kate! Those red devils have taken her!

. Fol-

a s
BILL STORIES 4

low their trail, if you are a a trtie man, and rescue her from

a fate worse than death! |

Soon afterward the man diéd, and Buffalo Bill, wie
out even waiting to bury him, hastened to fulfill his dying,
request. :

The trail was easily followed, and four hours later he
saw the camp fire of the Indians and crawled up to it
cautiously.

adhere were over twenty of them round the fire, and
the girl was lying on the ground in the midst ‘of the
circle, bound hand and foot. |
Her face was white as death and rigid with horror of
the fate she imagined to be in store for her. .

Buffalo Bill was in a quandary.

CHARTER Vik

BUFFALO BILL'S. OATH OF REVENGE.

What was he to do? In all his experience of the perils
of the frontier he aN never been up against a harder
proposition.

The girl must be rescued, and without delay ; but ew
was it to be done?

An attack upon her captors would in all probability
mean that a tomahawk would be at once sent crashing
into her skull. It was also likely to mean his own death;
but of that he thought little.

Yet, as he gazed at the girl’s half- wierd face, and
saw the look of agony deeply imprinted on it, he felt that
he must do something at once to let her know that help
was at hand, or she would be’ likely to go mad with the
horror of her terrible position,

It was plainly to be seen that she was reduced to the
lowest depths of despair, as well she might be under the
circumstances.

Giancing around cautiously at the group by thé camp
fire, he saw that none of the Indians were looking at the
place in which he had hidden himself, almost covered
by the long grass,

The braves had drunk a good deal of brandy and-
whisky which they had found in the plundered and
‘burned house, and, though they were not yet intoxicated, ©
their usually acute senses were somewhat dulled. -

Once, when he paid a visit to St. Louis, Buffalo Bil
had been induced to attend a lecture given by a famous —
scientist on the subject of will power. The man had.
said that any person of fairly strong mind could force
another to look at him ifhe gazed at the latter with suf-.
ficient intentness and concentrated his thoughts: on the :
matter. : :

At the time he heard this from the platform he had
been only mildly interested, and had never dreamed that
it.would become of vital importance to himself... But he.
was a man who never forgot what he heard. He stored

 
   

   

it- aw ay in his retentive memory, and perhaps ten years
afterward recalled it in the moment of dire need.

So itiwas now. He made up his mind in a flash that
he would test the theory of the scientist, in preference to
taking the mad chance of a rush upon the Indians..

Concentrating his mind as well as he knew how, he
fixed his eyes upon the girl, summoning up all his will
power to make her look at him.

 

For a few minutes, she remained with her head sunk
in her lap, as she had been before, apparently hopeless
and despairing. But soon she séemed to-arouse herself
from her lethargy.

A strange feeling—-as she confessed afterward—took
possession of her- -the feeling that she was being domi-
nated by some power outside of herself that was stronger
than her own will. She raised her head once or twice,
but then let it fall again into her lap.

The unconscious struggle ended in the victory of the
border king. Presently the girl looked up, with a start,
and gazed straight into his fiery, intent eyes.

Every vestige of color left her face, and she swayed
and seemed on the point of fainting. .But Buffalo Bill
looked at her with, eager encouragement, and the blood
came sweeping back in a crimson tide to her cheeks. She
pulled herself together, and sat erect and brave, with a
look of hope in her eyes at last. ’

Luckily, the redskins were not watching her closely,
or they might have followed the direction of her glance,
_ and discovered that the most dreaded of their enemies
) was within the reach of/their hate.

   
  

As soon as he caught her eyes and gave her a look of
encouragement, Buffalo Bill looked away, and then
dropped down entirely into cover. It would never do for
the Indians to see him, for that would spoil all his plans
for a rescue, even if he managed to get away alive.

     
 
 

After he had waited about ten minutes, the scout again
looked up and caught the eyes of the girl captive, very
much more easily this time than before.

  
   
 

“Shall T rush in, at all costs, and try to rescue you?”
his eyes asked, as plainly as eyes could speak.

  

“No,” she replied, in the same inaudible language, for
she knew very well that the effort which the heroic scout
_ was so willing to make would probably result in the death

of both of them. :

She shook her head slightly, to add force to her com-
mand to him to remain where he was—but so slightly

 
   
  
   
 
  

_ chances were ten to one he would not have noticed it.

  

Buffalo Bill gave her another look of encouragement,
| and then. crawled back under cover.- He had to plan
_some way,tc get her out of the clutches of the redskins

  
   
 
 

It was not an easy matter io decide. He révolved

 

xs

   

    

THE BUFFALO

        

- a dozen pians in

that even if an Indian had been looking at her, the ©

without delay and without giving them a chance te kill
_her, as they would undoubtedly do rather than let her

BILL STORIES,

2i

his mind, only to reject them one after
the other as worthless.

But luck came suddenly to oe aid in
expected,

The Indians had already been cna heavily, and
now thei- chief broached a small keg of bourbon whisky,
and filling some small tin cups with generous drinks,
passed them around the circle.

a manner he little ©

It was not long before the braves fell off, one after
another, into a drunken sleep.

Two of them were left on guard, and the chief, before
he became drunk himself, had ordered them to let the
whisky alone. But as soon as they saw he was in the
stupor of intoxication, they stole up to the keg and drank

eup aiter cup of the ardent spirit, until they were in the

same condition as the rest of their comrades.

Then Buffalo Bill stole forward quietly, cut the girl’s
‘bonds, and led her to where he had picketed his horse.
Early next morning he had brought her safely into the
camp, whence she was sent to relatives in the East, in
order that she might forget the scenes of bloodshed and
horror she had need.

The border king accompanied the expedition into the |
Bad Lands. Several small parties of hostiles were en-
countered and defeated, the braves being either wiped
out or made prisoners; but for three days nothing was
seen of Lariat Larry, whom they had expected to be on
the watch for them.

At last, as they were riding through the very canyon
in which he’ had saved Buffalo Bill’s life, they came upon
his mutilated remains hanging to a stake.

A piece of white bark was pinned to the stake by an
arrow, with a message from Short Bull upon it, in Sioux
characters. It said that he had tortured the scout to
death, and he would do the same to any other white men
he could catch.

Buffalo Bill’s grief and rage were terrible to see. He
took.an oath on the spot that he would have revenge on
Short Bull and his band, if he had to hunt them for
years... Le

The Bad Lands were traversed from end to end by the
expedition, but no trace was found of the Sioux chief
and his followers.

“They have gone to the Se to hunt buffalo for their
winter meat,” said Buffalo Bill to the general, when he -
returned to camp. “I will follow them there, to the
ranges where the herds are most plentiful.”

“Lead a party for me,’ the general requested. “There
are several of the officers who wouid like some buffalo
hunting, and we want a lot of meat for the winter sup-
plies. Take all the wagons you want to bring the meat
back in
_ Buralo, Bill aereed, end coon 101 oe a party of over
thirty men, including his friends, Wild Bill aud Nick

?

7

 

  
oe , “THE BUFFALO BILL STORIES.

' Wharton, several other scouts, and five of the officers,

with one of whom, named Capt. Smith, he had become
very friendly during the expedition into the Bad Lands.

x

CHAPTER Tx
CODY RIDES A BUFFALO.

Tie party had bad luck for several days, traveling
over the prairie without finding any traces of buffalo.
When they at last came across the tracks of a herd, they
found also a number of Indian footprints.

The moccasins were those of the Sioux, and it was
easy to arrive at the conclusion that they must be hostiles,
since all the friendlies, together with the tribesmen who
had surrendered, were assembled around the agencies
pending the drawing up of a treaty of peace by commis-
sioners sent from Washington. _

The Indians must be some of the handful who had fled
from the Bad Lands after the collapse of the war, under
the leadership of Short Bull, resolved at any cost to
maintain their fight for independence to the end.

“The redskins are evidently on the trail of the herd,”
said Buffalo Bill, after a careful inspection of all the
tracks. “Well, if we run up against them, we may be
able to kill two birds with one stone. If it were not for
the torturing of Larry and the terrible outrages on the
settlers’ of which they have been guilty I could find it in
my heart to pity the poor wretches.

»“They have been driven from their homes and their
lands, and now they have little chance of escaping the
parties that are hunting them down in all directions. Yet
they have the pluck to keep up the hopeless fight when

they know they might get good terms by coming into

the agencies like the rest of their tribe and surrendering.”

_ Nick Wharton stared at Buffalo Bill in amazement.
“Jumping snakes!” he exclaimed;

durned dream, or hev 1 lost my senses? Is it you I hyar,

_ Bill, stickin’ up fer these yere pesky red varmints thet

hevs been killin’ women an’ children?

rattler, but I thought better of you!”
Cody. laughed.

“Well, I dare say Til lose my sympathy for them when —

it comes to a. scrap, * he said.

The party moved forward along the broad trail ae

' by the buffalo. The tracks were several hours old, and
they had no hope of catching up with the herd that
day. They hoped, however, to reach a copse of wood
' far away on the western edge of the prairie, for they ex-
pected that there they would be able to find water for
their horses and themselves.

They: reached the timber shortly before dark, and at
once set to work to make a comfortable camp for. the
night,

As the evening meal was being oot ready 1 ee Bill

‘am [ina ol.

By the great
a - camp during the night.

®

gazed steadily at the southwestern horizon, and at ‘ast
announced : on

“There they are!”

‘Who—the buffalo or the daa asked Ca
Smith.

“Both,” replied the border king. —

“How do you know?”

“T can see some Indians hanging on the flanks of the
herd. They are trying to pick off a straggler without
disturbing the rest.”

The officer looked surprised. After staring steadily
in the direction toward which Buffalo Bill pointed, he

was forced to confess that he could not see anything.

“Look again,” said the scout. “Surely you can see
some objects moving.”

The officer unslung his held glasses, and looked
through them.

“Yes, I see them noe he agreed,
“but I could never have found them at such a distance,
even with the ue of the glasses. Your ies must
be wonderful.”

_ “Pretty fair,” Buffalo Bill admitted, with a smile. “It
needs to be in my line of business. It has had to save
my life a good many times. We scouts must always
train our eyesight and our sense of smell if we want to
keep our hair tight on our heads.”

“Shall we get the herd?” .

“T reckon we can get all we want of it in the morning.
It is no use going after it to-night. Unless they make
a sudden stampede during the darkness, which is not at
all probable, we can come up with them easily to-morrow
and kill as many as we like.”

The fact that redskins were also after the buffaloes
made Cody take special precautions for the safety of the
party under his charge. He saw that sentries were
placed both in the timber and out on the prairié, to give:
timely warning of the approach of any danger.

after a pause :

But if he expected a visit from the redskins he was
disappointed, for only a few yelling coyotes, attracted by
the savory smell of the dinner, disturbed the quiet of the

When the dawn came, the men saw the great herd of
buffeloes grazing quietly far off on the prairie. They
seemed to be quite unconscious of the fact that their

mortal enemy—man—was hanging on their flanks ready:
to massacre them.

he Indians were not to be seen, but it was quite pos-
sible that they were on the further side of the herd.
. “Good heavens! what a lot of them there dre!” ex-
claimed the captain, gazing with admiration at the veri-
table sea of black,shagey monsters away out on. the
plains. “How are we going to commence business ?”

“Just ride up on their flanks, -pick out the biggest fel-.
low’ you can, find and shoot him down. Better take.
good care that he is dead before you leave him and turn _

 

 

 
 

 

    
   
   
   
 

 

 

 
 
  
 

 

  
   
   
     

 

   

«herd takes the alarm and stampedes.

your attention to another, or he may bowl your horse
over when your back is turned, and then you would
stand a pretty poor show,” said Buffalo Bill. “As a
tule, we manage to get several before the rest of the
You must take
great care not to-get in the way of the herd when they
start to make the rush. If you do, it means certain
death, for they simply sweep over everything in their
path. Nothing can turn them aside. I have known

them to choke up the current of a big river when they

were fairly started on the run. Hundreds were
drowned, till they filled up the bed, and the rest passed
over on their bodies.”

“How many do you suppose there are in the herd?”
the officer asked.

“Tt is impossible to tell at this distance. There may
be ten thousand, and there may be fifty thousand.”

“Fifty thousand! That seems incredible.”

“Not at all. I have seen a herd which had twice as
many animals in it. The whole herd was stampeded,
and I can tell you it was a glorious sight.”

“Do they do much damage when they make these wild
rushes ?”

“Luckily there isn’t much to damage on the prairie,
but they level everything that comes in their path. When
a large herd stampedes, it cuts down the grass and de-
stroys it as thoroughly as a fire could do. The worst

. thing I know of in this matter happened a few years

ago, when a camp of emigrants was run over by a herd
of buffaloes at ae not more than fifty miles from this
very spot.”

( a God! I suppose they were all killed!”

“Yes, every one. They were just wiped off the earth,
so far as the eye could see afterward. Wagons, horses,
and everything in the camp was reduced to tiny frag-
ments. A hundred thousand of these monsters trampling
anything down at De speed don't leave very much
beliind, you may be sure.’

he captain looked at the herd with a new respect. He
had not fully understood the terrible power of the buffalo
and the danger of hunting him until this moment.

Wild Bill summoned them to breakfast, and when they
had done justice to that meal they rode off for the day’s
hunt.

A few straggling’ buffaloes which had wandered out
from the herd looked up and saw the hunters. as they
came toward them, and they at once made a dash for the
main body of the herd, greatly alarmed.

The béllowing, tramping and snorting of so many.

thousands, however, drowned the snorts of alarm which

these few stragglers made, and the herd did not ae
_ It went,on grazing as calmly as before.

‘When they had’all got on to the flank of the herd and

selected ‘their game, the hunters opened fire at the same
moment,

\

“THE BUFFALO BILL STORIES.

   

23

The crack of their rifles was not heard a. hundred yards
away, so loud was the roaring of the herd. : ae
_ Several of the shaggy monsters were brought down fo
the ground at the first volley, and the scouts and their
friends quickly fired again and again until more than two
score had been killed.

Then the buffaloes that were nearest to the hunters
took alarm and stampeded, bellowing loudly to the others.
In the space of two minutes the whole vast herd a
joined in the rush.

suddenly a wing of the herd swept around and ales
encircled Buffalo Bill and Capt. Smith, who were on the
extreme edge of the flank, ae they were aware of
their terrible danger. :

“Great heavens! We are doomed!’ valled the ae
as he saw the brown wave of bellowing monsters bearing —
down on them.
“Ride as you never rode before Cody shouted,
reply.

They wheeled and put spurs to their ee and went
off at racing speed. They were in the center of a curve
like a horseshoe, and must strain every nerve to get be-
yond the two ends, so that they could turn and let the
herd, that was now rushing along like a cyclone, pass

‘harmlessly by them.

Buffaloes are good runners, and these terrified beasts
were going as well ag they knew how, but the two men

were well mounted and they would have escaped by the
skin of their teeth had not the two ends of the horseshoe
suddenly closed.

“We are lost!” cried the officer in Buffalo Bill’s ear,
but the king of the scouts could hardly catch the words,
so loud was the mighty roar of the ae of infuriated

beasts all around them.

The knight of the plains, in all his desperate adven-
tures, had never been nearer to death, but he kept as cool
as an iceberg. He well knew how awful was the peril,’
but he also knew that only a clear head and instant action’
could save them. oe

He shouted to Capt. Smith to keep’ cool and try to
swing himself on to the back of the first buffalo that
reached him. But the officer had lost his nerve and paid
no heed to the words. In a moment a huge bull ran into
his horse and sent it reeling to the ground. Cody tried»
to catch the rider, but he fell under the hoofs and the |
herd passed over him. In a few seconds he was trodden
into a shapeless mass. | f

Another buffalo struck Se horse, ‘and logit the
animal went.

But Buffalo Bill had kicked his feet free of the stirrups,
and as his horse went down he slid swiftly from the sad-
dle and sprang on the back of a huge bull buffalo. In a_

second he had seated himself there firmly and taken a

tight grip of the long, shaggy hair on the animal’s neck
and shoulders.

wet

  

      
   

  
 
  

24 THE BUPEPALO

The horse was trampled to death in a moment, but
the rider was saved by the skin of his teeth, at least for
a few seconds. It hardly seemed that it could be longer,
so terrible was the peril of that strange ride.

The other buffaloes, crowding alongside, bruised his
legs badly, but he felt that he could put up with that so
long as they did not ae him with their short, but
deadly horns.

The bull which he had mounted was a powerful brute,
and did not at all relish being made a horse of. He did
all that he could to unseat his rider, plunging along at a
great rate, bucking and rearing, and trying in vain to
shake him off. So many other buffaloes crowded in on
him, however, that he had to keep a fairly straight course
and go ahead swiftly. It was impossible for him to stop
and roll on the ground, as he would otherwise have done,
for thousands upon thousands were crowding on from
behind,

To fall meant swift and certain death, either for the
- hunter or his strange steed. The beast, his dull instincts
quickened by the danger, seemed to know this. He must
go on or perish, and so he plunged madly forward with

his comrades. ce

Mile after mile passed by, and the scout could not even
get a glimpse of the ground over which he was being
carried at such a terrific pace, so thickly did the buffaloes
gather around him.

But there was one ray of hope. On the left he saw
that he was nearer to the edge of the herd than he had
been when he had started, and the main body was bearing
away to the right. After a little while he would be clear
of the onrushing thousands, unless the bull he was riding
should take it into his head to turn. to the right also,
which was quite likely.

Intent on preventing this, Cody took off his hat, leaned
forward on the animal’s neck and struck at the right eye
of the bull. This greatly alarmed the beast, and he roared
_and bellowed and plunged away madly to the left, getting
nearer and nearer to the edge of the herd with every
stride.

Bill repeated’ the stroke with the hat again and again,
until he had got the bull out from among the stragglers
on the fringe of the herd, where he could ride more
freely. But he was still too near the main body for

safety, and hé drove the animal further and further to
the left. Drawing a breath of relief, he looked back and
saw countless thousands of animals still following. Many
hundreds seemed to be in a direct line with him. The
danger was. still imminent, and so he guided his own

maddened buffalo further and further away to the left.

_The beast tried to roll on the ground and unseat him,
so that he could trample him to death. But, immediately
he was out of the line of the stampede, Buffalo Bill drew
his revolver from his belt, pressed the muzzle against the
beast’s neck and pulled the trigger.

~

“pull shied to the left, trembled a little,
fury, but still rushed on madly, trying every now and —

 

Bi ot TES.

It seemed ee to shoot the animal that had saved.

his life, albeit against its will; but it was necessary to do
so in order to save his own life.. To dismount would be
exceedingly dangerous so long as the bull remained in his
present infuriated state.

When the revolver was fired right against his neck, ihe
bellowed with

then to shake the relentless enemy off his back.

‘How many bullets does it take to kill you, old fel-
low?” Bill muttered to himself, between clinched teeth.
“Vou can hold lead like a grizzly. Here’s another, any-
how !” ie

He bent forward on the mane, put the muzzle of his

revolver to the animal’s neck again, and fired another ,

shot.

With a loud roar the bull turned clear round, as if
stunned by the shot. Believing he was about to fall, Cody
sprang to the ground, for he was afraid of being crushed
under the huge body of the beast.

But he had hardly alighted on his feet when he saw his
mistake, and would have given all he was worth to be on
the buffalo’s back once more.

Relieved of the unusual weight, the bull ran on for
about ten paces and then stopped to see what it was he
had been carrying on his back for the past twenty miles
or more.

He seemed enraged when he found out that it was °
something which he could easily tose on his short horns -

and trample to pieces beneath his sharp and powerful
hoofs.
Standing there for a moment, he was a terrifying sight,

with his eye streaked with blood, and blood also flowing ©

from hig distended nostrils.
Scarcely for a second did he pause, and then, with a

loud bellow, he lowered his head and charged madly at

the man.
Bill had slung his rifle over his Moulder whien he got

on the bull’s back, so that he would have both hands free

to grasp the mane. This nearly proved to be his undoing

now, for though he had just time to unsling the rifle, he — ;

had not time to cock it before the mad bull was upon
him.

He seemed to be hopelessly doomed at last, but his”
wonderful agility again saved him.

With the nimbleness of a squirrel he planted one oe
on the buffalo’s head and jumped up on it as the beast

came up to him. Thus he avoided being gored by the,

terrible horns, or butted by that enormous, shaggy head.
But he could not escape altogether.
thrown through the air some ten feet, landing on all
fours.

The bull turned with a savage, triumphant bellow: ex-
pecting to find him an easy victim now.

Luckily he escaped without any broken limbs, and |
_was only slightly shaken up. a

He was raised and

  

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But Bill had already got to his feet and cocked the
rifle. As the buffalo faced him he pulled the trigger and
sent a bullet between the eyes right into the brain. The
- animal dropped to his knees, and then fell over on his
| side—dead at last.

  
 

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“That ends our struggle, old fellow,” muttered Buffalo .

Bill, resting on his gun for a moment and panting from
his strenuous exertions, as he gazed at the dead bull. “I
guess it was a fair one while it lasted.”

The herd was still sweeping southward in a resistless
mass, and were stretching away into the distance, while
thousands more were still behind, pouring madly forward
in the wake of that heaving sea of black and brown.

“IT wonder if the fellows will follow the herd in search
of poor Capt. Smith and of me?” the border king said
to himself.
hope, but I guess Wild Bill and old Nick will trail along
just the same, on the off chance.”

@ An hour passed and the main body of the herd had
of » all swept past him without swerving in the slightest de-
@ gree from their course.

Only a few stragglers from the herd now remained
behind, and they soon came plunging along, their mouths
flecked with foam and their eyes bloodshot and fiery.

 
 
 

swept by, and Buffalo Bill had no fear that they would
attack him.

But they were followed by bac lcr enemy far more
_ dangerous to the white man.

  
 
  
 
  

Behind them came a band of Indians, mounted on swift
mustangs. They had evidently been pursuing the herd
for some time and picking off the stragglers for sport,
for they were not troubling to collect the meat they had
- slain.

   
   
   

There were over a dozen of them in sight, and Buffalo
Bill saw at a glance that they were hostile Sioux. He
_ concluded that the best thing he could do was to hide
behind the slain buffalo, and hoped they would not notice

it as they rushed past, excited by the passion of the hunt.

  
   
 
  

. One of the Indians, however, rode close to the carcass,
stared at 1t for a moment, saw the man lying by its side,
‘and leaped from his horse to examine him more closely,
_ thinking that he must be dead.
Seeing that concealment was no longer possiblé, the
king of the scouts rose immediately to his feet and con-
fronted the redskin.

   
  
  
  
   
  

a tomahawk, but Cody had his »
promptly got the drop on him, |, sending a bullet through

revolver ready, and

   
  

his brain.

elt was the only way,” he muttered to himself.
to do it,
have the whole gang of them to fight.” .

 

“T had
But now the others are coming for me, and I'll

     

   

THE BUEFALO

sure enough,’

“They must think we are gone beyond a

They turned neither to the right nor the left as they

The astonished savage put his and to his belt to draw

   

BILL STORIES. ©

CRAP THR: xX
THE AVENGING OF LARRY.

Buffalo Bill was right in that supposition.. che other
Indians had seen their comrade dismount, and they had
naturally watched him from their saddles when he ad-
vanced toward the dead buffalo. They had seen his sud-
den death, and he had hardly fallen to the ground before
they darted toward the scout, uttering loud yells for
vengeance. _

Fortunately, they had some distance to travel, or the
moments of the border king would have been numbered.

“I’ve got to get the horse, or they will get my hair
muttered Buffalo Bill to himself, as he
advanced cautiously toward the mustang of the dead In-
dian. The animal was standing quietly near by, intent —
on watching the movements of the buffalo. :

Bill had caught him by the lariat in a few ee
and sprang into the saddle and galloped away before the:
Indians could come up with him.

The redskins pursued him hotly, yelling their. war cry.
and firing their rifles as they tore along. .

Fortunately, they were badly armed’ with trade guns, |
and they could not take a good aim from the backs OL
their ponies. :

Buffalo Bill had a splendid rifle, one of the best on ihe
frontier in that day, when good repeaters were not so
common as they are now. He knew that he was almost
out of range of the weapons of thé Indians, and he
turned, stopped his horse, and faced them, resolved to see _
if he could not show better marksmanship than they had
done. ; :
Raising his repeating rifle to his shoulder, he took 4
quick aim and fired at the foremost of his pursuers.

The painted savage tumbled from his horse, shot
through his heart. :

“Now for another!” said the scout, and he jerked up
the lever arid sent a second bullet whizzing on its deadly
errand.

He shot three of the Indians in less time than it fakes
to tell it, and then swung himself into the saddle and
swiftly rode off.

The mustang was a fine animal, and soon carried him
out of range of the redskins’ rifles, though for a moment.
the bullets fell thickly around him,

When he had ridden a mile or two he stopped again
and repeated the same tactics, accounting for three more .
of his pursuers. . as

This heavy loss alarmed the Indians. They promptly -
reined up their horses, and all fired a volley together. But _

they were too far off. Their rifles were ordinary muzzle ©

loaders, and could not send a bullet half a mile with ac-
curacy. ® b

Buffalo Bill’s better weapon ables again, and another
man dropped.

This was enough for the savages. The ee were

  

   
quick to decide on a retreat, for they loved their own
skins even better than revenge.

_, The border king, however, was not inclined to let them
off easily. They had attacked him at first without any
provocation, and would have delighted to put him to
death by torture. He thought of Lariat Larry, of the
ruined homesteads and slaughtered families he had seen
in the settlements at the start of the campaign, and he
resolved that he would put these Indians out of the way
of doing any more damage if he could. |

Shaking out the reins of his mustang, he flew after
them as fast as he could, firing from the back of his
horse until he had shot down all but one of his foes. .

They could not get beyond the range of that deadly
Winchester, though they dashed forward wildly as fast as
their panting horses could carry them. Another and an-
other went down, until only one brave remained of the
whole band.

The border king laughed triumphantly as he tore along
over the prairie in pursuit of that single savage.

oA good horse and a eaere repeater will get a
man out of the worst corners,” he thought. “If a man
has those he can account for a whole tribe of these red
devils, provided he doesn’t let them surprise him. When
they pursue, you can keep out of their way and still bring
down a man at every shot. If they retreat you can pursue
them and still keep out of danger.

“How that poor devil is scared! I guess he can read
his title clear to-the happy hunting grounds of the Great
Manitou. By thunder! I believe he is Short Bull himself!
Yes, he wears the eagle plumes of the ruling chief. Well,
~ he shan’t escape me if I have to pursue him for a month.”

The border king thought-of his slain friend, Lariat
Larry, and determined that this chieftain, the commander
of the band who had tortured Larry to death, should
pay for him. His avenging hand should not be stayed
until the savage breathed his last, but he would not kill
him until he let him’know who his slayer was, and whose
death he was paying for.

With this object in view, he did not fire at the back
of the fleeing redskin, as he might easily have done, but
sent a bullet instead into his horse, crippling it so that it
could no longer run.

Short Bull leaped to the ground, and flung the wounded
animal down on its side by the bridle.
_. behind him, making an effectual breastwork of his body.

“By heavens, Short Bull is no fool!” exclaimed Buffalo

Bill, hastily reining up his horse and gazing at the spot
where the horse had gone down. “If I get within range
of him he’ll put a bullet through me. Why in thunder
didn’t I think of that before? But I’m hanged if I'll let
him escape! If he can keep me at bay until dark he'll be
able to get away. Well, even if he does, I can still follow,

Then he crouched ©

THE BUFFALO BILL STORIES.

on his trail, and [ll do it if it takes me a year.

- Poor
Larry shail not go unavenged.” |

Cody remained in his saddle for some time, watching
the horse, the top of whose side he could just catch a
glimpse of over the tall grass of the prairie, untrodden
in this place by the stampeding buffaloes.

Fe did not know what to do. If he advanced on fe
Indian he would place himself within range of his rifle,
and he knew that Short Bull had the reputation of being:
one of the best shots among the Sioux. |

On the other hand, he would not oo away. Buffalo
Bill was not a very forgiving man where the injuries of
his friends were concerned. He was far from being cruel,
but he felt that the death of Lariat Larry ought to be
avenged. Besides, if Short Bull escaped he would use
his undoubted skill in border warfare to murder more
whites and raise trouble all along the border.

“TH have you yet!’ he muttered, as he got off his
horse and walked to and fro in the tall grass, in order to
stretch his cramped legs after so much hard riding.

Presently he saw a white handkerchief waving on a —
ramrod above the horse behind which Short Bull had
taken refuge.

“A trick!” he muttered. “The savage knows all about
the white man’s ways and ideas through living on the
reservation and meeting lots of white soldiers. He hasn’t
the faintest notion of surrendering, I’d bet all I own on
that. He just wants me to come within range, so that he
can pot me on the sly.”

Bill waved his own handkerchief in response, and then o

waited for the redskin to show himself.

The chief was too cunning to do this, but he kept 0 on
waving the handkerchief.

Cody yelled to him to surrender, but there was no re-
sponse. The white fag remained waving above the horse.

“What in thunder does the fellow mean, I wonder?
He must be just trying to draw me within range.” And
Buffalo Bill chuckled grimly as he thought how long the
savage would have to wait before he succeeded with such
a transparent artifice.

Cody waited hour after hour for some action on the
part of the redskin, but he seemed tc remain close behind
his horse all the time, without making any movement.

“He’s waiting for the darkness, and eee he will nets
off,”’ thought Buffalo Bill.

Then he raised his voice to a a that ous be heard
half a mile away.

“Come out, Short Bull, you son of a ies and ie
like a man!’ he yelled.

There was no reply to this challenge, but the white

“handkerchief still waved. Not an inch of his body would

the wily ee expose to the deadly aim of the mores
king.

 

 
 

    
  
  
   
  
   
 
   
 
 
   
  
    
  
   

  
   
  
  

 

     

was certainly not in sight.

gone.”

 
 

crawling through the grass.

THE BUFFALO

Cody determined to creep up cautiously through the
grass and try to get a shot at the Indian before the sun
went down. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, he
dropped on his stomach and wormed his way through the
tall grass in the direction of the prostrate horse. ‘
He made rapid progress, and in about ten minutes
raised his head above the top of the grass to make a
survey of the position.

The white flag was still flying, and he decided to make
a detour and thus get in the rear of the Indian. He
spent nearly half an hour in doing this, but he reached
the spot he was trying to make just as the sun sank out
of sight below the western edge of the prairie, bathing

the evening sky in a sea of crimson and gold.

The border king was now about fifty yards in the rear
of the redskin chief.

Suddenly he unslung his rifle and rose boldly to his
feet, prepared to get the drop on his enemy before the lat-
ter had time to fire.

There lay the horse and the ramrod with the white
handkerchief, tied to it. But where was the Indian? He

“Gone, by thunder!” exclaimed Buffalo Bill, equally
disgusted and surprised, as he dropped back into the grass
again. “He must have crawled away after he tied the
handkerchief to the ramrod, but he can’t have gone far.
He'll try to get one of the horses, and then make his
escape under cover of darkness. That will be my chance
to pot him.” :

The horses of the slain redskins, being without riders,
had naturally come up to the first man in sight, as Indian
ponies are trained to do, and Buffalo Bill had hobbled

them, hours ago, near by his own.

Creeping forward toward the dead horse, the border
king saw that the wily savage had crept forward through
the grass in the direction of the horses.

“He means fo get one, sure enough, ’ inovche the scout.

“He might have picked me off if he had been a little bit

smarter. Ill follow his trail and see which way he has

It was easy enough to follow the trail ae by a man
All that Buffalo Bill needed
to look out for was not to run into his. foe before he saw

him, and thus get shot after all his trouble.

As he neared the horses he began to go very slowly
and cautiously, for he knew that the chief must be

near by.

‘

   

   

BILL. STORIES, 'e ; 27

It was now getting dark, and the stars were coming

-out and flecking the evening sky like so many diamonds.

Presently Cody thought that he noticed one of the
ponies making movements that were not quite voluntary.

Keeping his eyes carefully on it, he crept forward until —
he was within twenty paces of the animal.

aes he could see that its hobbles had yee Pa and it

He crept closer and closer, until he was within ten
paces.

Then the savage seemed to think that he had got far
enough away to dare to mount, for he rose to his feet
and vaulted into the saddle.

Bang! went Buffalo Bill’s rifle, and the Sioux chief
tumbled back into the grass again. : :

In a moment he was upon his feet, yelling his war cry
and daring the white man: to fight him face to face.

_ Short Bull knew that he had received a mortal wound, |
but with the stoicism of his race he hid the fact and
yearned to take just one more scalp before he expired.

Buffalo Bill did not disregard his challenge. He sprang”
to his feet and the two men fired at the same moment.

The redskin’s bullet tore a hole in the scout’s som-
brero, for he could not take good aim, being already
But Cody
sent a shot into his breast which made him reel back sey-

faint from the mortal wound he had received,

eral paces, clutching at his throat before he fell ke to
the ground.

As the scout bent over him, he gave him a glance of
mortal hatred and tried to draw his knife from his belt,
but his fast-ebbing strength was not sufficient. ~ ,
he hissed under his breath .
“You have beaten-me and all my

ay know you, Long Hair,”
in the Sioux tongue.

tribe, but at least I have many paleface scalps to offer to

Great Wakantanka.”

“One of them is the scalp of my friend whom you tor-
tured to death less than a moon ago,’ said Buffalo Bill.
“That is why I have killed you now.” -

There was a look of malignant satisfaction on the

chief's face as if he thought he was glad he had tortured

Lariat Larry, even though it had led to his death, He

struggled to speak again but he was too weak from loss . ‘
of blood, The death rattle ae him in the throat, and
he fell back dead. os
Buffalo Bill gave him. a Proper Indian funeral Penaine
a great chief, :
With all his cruelty and oe hatred of ate whites,

Short Bull was a brave and skillful warrior, and the
38 ° THE BUFFALO BILL STORIES.

Fo one,

He built a funeral pyre of dry grass beside the body
of the dead horse and laid the chief upon it, with all his
weapons of war resting upon his chest.

Then he set fire to the grass so that the bodies of horse
and man alike would be carried, according to the redskin

faith on the wings of flame to the happy hunting grounds.

of Great Wakantanka.

This done, he prepared to return in search of ie com-
rades. The horses were still grazing near by, hobbled as
he had left them, and the mustang which the dead chief
had set free came up of his own accord to join the rest.
They still had on the saddles and bridles of their owners.

Tying them together and mounting his own, he led the
whole batch back along his trail, until he struck the wide
swath cut in the prairie by the stampeded herd.

Then he went on at a swift canter for a few hours,
and toward morning he saw several figures on horseback
coming up through the darkness.

Seeing that they were dressed in the garb of white
/amen, De hailed them and discovered by their answering
shouts that they were his friends.

Nick Wharton and Wild Bill, with two of the officers,
had pushed on in advance of the rest, who had camped
away back on the prairie, having given up ae Bill
and the captain for lost.

“Hello, boys Y cried the border king, as he rode up to
them. ‘How many of the buffaloes did you manage to
kill?”

“How did you manage to escape alive?” said Wild
Bill, staring at him in amazement. ‘Here we’ve been for
half a day picking up fragments of bones and rags that
we supposed were your body, and trying to give them
a decent funeral. We followed on the trail, but we never
really supposed for a moment that either of you could
have managed to escape.”

“It was poor Capt. Smith you buried,” ste Buffalo
Bill, sadly. And he explained how he had managed to
get out of the ea and what pad happened after-
ward.

The two scouts readily believed him, for they had seen
him do many other things quite as remarkable as getting
the better of a bunch of redskins. But Cody could see
that the officers hardly credited his story,

-porder king could not help paying him the honor due to

“here are the horses.

ites.”

“I know you don’t believe it, gentlemen,” he said, “but
You saw the herd close in on your
unfortunate comrade and myself, and here I am alive
now. To-morrow, when we ride on along the trail, I
will show you the dead bull and the bodies of the Indians. :
But now give me eos to eat and drink, for I’ve
had nothing since morning.” :

Nick Wharton broiled him a buffalo steak and made
him some coffee, while Wild Bill rode back to the camp
and informed the rest of the party of his marvelous
escape.

Next morning the entire party, once more reunited,
started on the trail of the herd, intent on having some
more of the exciting sport which they all loved.

Cody found the dead bull and the bodies of the In-
dians and showed them to the officers, who had been so
skeptical on the previous night.

They apologized for their doubts, and said it was the
most wonderful exploit they had ever heard of in all their
experience in the West. Buffalo Bill modestly explained
that it was entirely due to his being armed with a better
rifle than his foes, but the officers would not admit that.

The hunt for the herd was then resumed, and during
the two weeks they kept it up many a huge buffalo bit
the dust. When they finally returned to the fort they took
with them many wagon loads of jerked meat, enough to
last during the entire winter.

But, best of all, they took back the news that Lariat
Larry and the many murdered settlers had been avenged,
and that Short Bull, the worst of the hostiles, would no
longer disturb the peace of the border.

THE END.

Have you ever heard of the Danites, the terrible Mor-
man secret society, who called themselves the “Avengers
of Blood,” in the early frontier days? Allied with the
Indians, these grim fanatics waged relentléss war on the |
settlers and emigrants who pushed their way westward
when that part of our country was wild and unsettled. In
the next issue of the Burrato Birt Stories, No. 215,
there will be found an interesting and thrilling story of
these men and their dark deeds. Don’t fail to read “Buf-
falo Bills Mormon Quarrel; or, At War 0 the Dan-
Out next week.

cE Beware of Wild West imitations of the Buffalo Bill Stories. They are about fictitious characters. The Buffalo
Bill weekly is the only weekly containing the adventures of pete Bul: (Col. W. F. Bee ve is known ail

over the world as the king of scouts.

q

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 3—Ted Strong’s Railway Trip ; or, An Unsolved

‘Mystery.

14——Ted Strong's Mission; or, Taming a Tender-
foot.

15—Ted Strong’s Might; or, The Cross Against
the Sword.

16—Ted Strong’s Puzzle; or, The Golden Mesa.

17—Ted Strong in the Chaparral; or, The Hunt
at Las Animas.

18—Ted Strong’s Forethought; or, King of the
Mesa.

19—Ted Strong in the Land of Little Rain; or,
Bud Morgan’s Vengeance.

20—Ted Strong’s Water Sign; or, In Shoshone
Land.

21—Ted Strong’s Steadiness; or, The Cattle
Rustlers of Ceriso.

22—Ted Strong’s Land Boom; or, The Rush for
a Homestead.

23—Ted Strong’s Indian Trap; or, Matching
Craft with Craft.

24—Ted Strong’s Signal; or, Racing with Death.

25—Ted Strong’s Stamp Milk; or, The Woman

in Black.

_26—Ted Strong’s Recruit; or, A Hidden Foe.

27—Ted Strong’s Discovery; or, The Rival

Miners,
_ 28—Ted Strong’s Chase; or, The Young Rough

Riders on the Trail.

29—Ted Strong’s Enemy; or, An Uninvited
Guest.

30—Ted Strong’s Triumph; or, The End of the
‘Contest.

31—Ted Strong in Nebraska; or, The Trail to

Fremont.
32—Ted Strong in Kansas City: or,-fhe Last of
the Herd.
33—The Rough Riders in Missouri; or, In the
Hands of His Enemy.
34—The Young Rough Riders in St. Louis; or,
The League of the Camorra.
35--The Young Rough Riders in Indiana; or,
The Vengeance of the Camorra.
36-——-The Young Rough Riders in Chicago; or,
Bud Morgan’s Day Off.
37—The Young Rough Riders in Kansas; or,
The Trail of the Outlaw.,
38—The Young Rough Riders in the Rockies ; or,
Fighting in Mid Air.

 

_39—The Young Rough Rider’s Foray; or, The

Mad Horse of Raven Hill.

40—The Young Rough Rider's Fight to the
Death ; or, The Mad Hermit of Bear’s
Hole. ,

41—The Young Rough Rider’s Indian Trail; or,
Okanaga, the Cheyenne.

42—-The Young Rough Rider’s Double; or, Un-

~ masking a Sham.

43—The Young Rough Rider’s Vendetta ; or, The
House of the Sorceress.

44—Ted Strong in Old Mexico; or, The Haunted
Hacienda.

45—The Young Rough Rider in California; or,

‘The Owls of San Pablo.

46—The Young Rough Rider’s Silver Mine; or,
The Texas Giant.

47—The Young Rough Rider’s Wildest Ride; or,
Cleaning Out a Whole Town.

48—The Young Rough Rider’s Girl Guide; or,
The Maid of the Mountains.

49—The Young Rough Rider’s Handicap; or,
Fighting the Mormon Kidnapers. |

50—The Young Rough Rider’s Daring Climb;
or, The Treasure of Copper Crag:

51—The Young Rough Rider’s Bitterest Foe; or,.
The Challenge of Capt. Nemo.

: 52—The Young Rough Rider's Great Play; or,

The Mad Ally of a Villain.
53 The Young Rough Rider Trapped; or, A
Villain’s Desperate Play.
54—The Young Rough Rider’s Still-Hunt; or,
“The Mystery of Dead Man's Pass.
55—-The Young Rough Rider’s Close Call;
. The Girl From Denver.
56—The Young Rough Rider’s Ciose Call; or
: - Life Against Life.
57-—The Young Rough Rider’s Silent Foe; or,
The Hermit of Satan’s Gulch.
58—The Young Rough Rider's River Route; or,
A Fight Against Great Odds.

'59—The Young Rough Rider’s Investment; or,

A Bargain With a Ghost.
60—The Young Rough Rider’s Pledge; or, The
Hermit of Hidden Haunt.
61—The Young Rough Rider’s Aérial Voyage;
or, The Stranded Circus. |
62—Ted Strong’s Nebraska Ranch; or, The Gra.
cas at Fullerton.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All of the above mumbers always on hand, If you cannot get them from your —
newsdealer, five cents per copy will bring theme fo you by mail, postpaid:

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Ave., NEW YORK -

 

 

 

 

 

  
 

 

THE BEST DETECTIVE STORIES IN THE WORLD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

392A Queen of Her Kind; or, A Beautiful
Woman's Nerve.

393-——Isabel Benton’s Trump Card; or, Desperate
Play to Win.

394—-A Princess of Hades; or, The Reappear-
ance of Dazaar, the Fiend.

395—A Compact with Dazaar; or, The Devil
“Worshiper’s Den.

296—In the Shadow of Dazaar; or, At the Mercy
of Vampires.

397--The Crime of a Money-King; or, The Bat-

tle of the Magnates.

398—The. Terrible Game of Millions; or, Track-
ing Down the Plotters.

399—A. Dead Man’s Power; or, The Mystery of
a Telephone Number.

400—The Secrets of an Old House; or, The

_ Crime of Washington Heights.

401—The House with the Open Door; or, The
Double Crime of Madison Avenue.

402—The Society of Assassination; or, The De-

t . | tective’s Double Disguise.

403—The Brotherhood of the Crossed Swords; |

or, The Little Giant’s Mighty Task.

404—The Trail of the Vampire; or, The Mys-
terious Crimes of Prospect Park.

405—The Demons of the Night; or, The Terrors
of the Idol’s Cavern.

406—The Captain of the Vampire; or, Smugglers
of the Deep Sea.

407—-A Bank President’s Plot; or, Three Vil-
lains of a Stripe.

408—The Master Criminal; or, With the Devil
in His Eye.

409--The Carruthers Puzzle; or, Nick Carter's

Best Disguise.

410—Inez, the Mysterious; or, The Master Crim-

inal’s Mascot.

A411—The Criminal Queen’s Oath; or, The Dif-

- ference Between Two.

412—The Point of a Dagger; or, The Criminal
Queen’ s Madness.

413—-Doctor Quartz, the Second; or, The Great
Freight Car Mystery.

414—-Doctor Quartz, the Second, at Bay; or, A
Man of Iron Nerve.

ae s—The Great Hotel Murders: or, Daas

Quartz’s Quick Move.

 

416-—Zanoni, the Woman Wizard; or, The Ward
of Doctor Quartz.

417—The Woman Wizard’s Hate; or, A Danger-
ous Foe.

418—The Prison Demon; or, The Ghost of Dr.
Quartz.

419—Nick Carter and the Hangman’s Noose; or,
Dr. Quartz on Earth Again.

420—Dr. Quartz’s Last Play; or, A Hand with a
Royal Flush.

421—Zanoni, the Transfigured; or, Nick Car-
ters Phantom Mascot.

422—By Command of the Czar; or, Nick Car-
ter’s Boldest Defiance.

423—The Conspiracy of an Empire; or, Nick Car-
ter’s Bravest Act.

424—-A Queen of Vengeance; or, Nick Carter’s
Beautiful Nemesis.

425—Daring Dan, the Himan Mystery; or, Nick
Carter’s Smoothest Foe.

426—Dan Derrington’s Double; or, Nick Carter’s _
Terrible eT est.

427—-The Great Gold Swindle; or, The Little

_ Giant’s Masterpiece.

428—An East River Mystery; or, Nick Carter’s
Daring Leap.

429— The Phantom Highwayman; or, Nick Car- ,
ter’s Slender Clew.

430—A, Million Dollar Hold Up; or, Nick Car-
ter’s Richest Client.

431—Nick Carter and the Man With the Crooked
Mind.

432—Nick Carter’s Convict Enemy; or, The
Power that Makes Men Tremble.

433—The Pirate of the Sound; or, Nick Car-
ter’s Midnight Swim.

434——The Cruise of the Shadow; or, Nick Car-
ter’s Ocean Chase.

435—A Prince of Impostors; or, Nick Carter’s
Clever Foil.

436—The Mystery of John Dashwood; or, Nick

~ Carter and the Wharf Secret.

437—Following a Blind Trail; or, The Detect-

ive’s Best Guess.
438—The Crime of the Potomac; or, The Telltale

Finger Marks.

439—In the Shadow of Death; or, Nick Carter's
Saving Hand.

 

 

All of the above numbers always om hand. if you cannot get them from your
nowsdealer, five cemts por cepy whl bring them te you by mail, postpales

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Ave., NEW YORK

 

 

 

 

 

 
  
  
 
 
 
 
   
   
  
  
 

 

 

 

   
  
 
    
 

¥

  
  

    
      
 

 

    

 

 

CONTA AINING THE MOST r UNIOUE AND FAS-

  

CINATING TALES OF WESTERN ROMANCE

 

 

 

410—Diamond Dick, Jr.’s, Long Shot; or, A Mis-
play at Tonto Pass:

4I 1—Diamond Dick, Jr., and the Circus Sharps;

or, Crooked Work at Flushville.

412—Diamond Dick’s Black Flyer; or, The Raid
of the Tickabo Terrors.

413—Diamond Dick’s Treasure Train; or, Run
Down on the Trestle.

414—Diamond Dick, Jr.’s, Night Ride; or, The
Fight for the “Way-up-in-G’ Mine.

415—Diamond Dick’s Signal; or, The Sympathy
Strike at Skiplap.

416—Diamond Dick and the Sandbaggers; or,

. Queer Work in the Private Car.

417—Diamond Dick, Jr.’s, Dutch Mascot;. or,
Wet Goods at Tickabo.

418—Diamond Dick, Jr., and the Serpent Queen;
or, The Secret of the Peso-la-ki.~

419—Diamond Dick’s Specter; or, The Phantom |

that Won Out.

420—Diamond Dick’s Pay Car; or, Foiling the
Hatchet-Boys.

421—Diamond Dick in Grubstake; or, How the
Trappers Were Trapped.

_422—Diamond Dick and the Bond Thieves; Or,

Handsome Harry’ s Barrel of Trouble.

| 423—Diamond Dick;.Jr.’s, Mid-Air Battle;

The Death Trail of Lightning- ae
: Strikes.
424—Diamond Dick, Jr., and the Black-Hands;
or, On the Trail of the Freebooters.
425—Diamond Dick’s Lone Hand; or, A Game
of Tag at the Tin Cup Ranch,

426—Diamond Dick, Jr., and the “Knock Down”

Men; or, A Mix-Up at Forty Miles an
Hour.
427—Diamond Dick, Jr.’s, Switch-off; or, A
Close Shave at Razor Gap...
428—Diamond Dick’s Christmas Gift; or, A Full
_ | House at Pocomo.
429—Diamond Dick Among the Mail Bags; or,
A Round with the Postal Grafters.
430—Handsome Harry’s Hard Fight; or, The
Queer Mystery of the Five Ace Gang. -

431—Handsome Harry on the Wolf’s Trail; or, |

“the Train Robber’s Ambush.

%

 

432—Handsome Harry’ S Sue Hold; or, The:
Pretty Demoneof the Rockies.

433—Handsome Harry’s Quickest Shot; or,
Drawing the Sting from a Gila,

434—Handsome Harry’s Trump Card; or, The
Bad Man from Texas.

435—Handsome Harry’s Lightning Stroke; or,
The Mutineers of Misery Gulch.

430—Handsome Harry’s Fierce Game; or, The
Moonshiner’s Oath.

437—Handsome Harry in Chinatown; or, The
Highbinders’ Crimson Compact,

438—Handsome Harry in the Bad Lands; or, A’
Fight for Lite in the Bandit Belt.

Wao Dapond Dicks Jr.’s, Castle in the Air; or,
The Deadly Duel with Riatas.

440—Diamond Dick, Jr., and the Fire Bugs; or,

The Ten- Strike at Lallakoo.
441—Handsome Harry’s Iron Hand; or, Solving
a Great Diamond Mystery.

- 442—Handsome Harry’s Treasure Hunt; or,

Three Old Tramps from Tough Luck.

443—Handsome Harry’s Steel Trap; or, A Run-
ning Fight in the Rockies. ,

444—Handsome Harry with a Hard Crowd ; OF,
_A. Blow-up on the Mississippi.

445—Handsome Harry’s Big Round-up; or, The
Beauty of Chimney Butte.

446—Handsome Harry in the Big Range; or,
Hey, Rube, in Arizona.

447—Diamond Dick’s Ghostly Trail;
Phantom Engine of Pueblo. — -

448—Diamond Dick’s Boy Hunt; or, The Kid-

napers of the Sierras. .

449—Diamond Dick’s Sure Throw; or, The
Broncho Buster’s Last Ride.

450—Diamond Dick’s Fight for Honor; or, The
Wizard Gambler.

451—Diamond Dick Afloat; or, The Pirates of
the Pacific.

452—Diamond Dick’s Steeple Gi or, The
Leap That Won the Race.

453—Diamond Dick’s Deadly Peril; or, A rie
for Life in the Rapids.

454——Diamond Dick’s Black Hazard: or, The
Feud at Roaring Water.

of, The

 

 

 

 

All of the above norshere always om fear

if yew cannot got them from your

nowsdeaior, five cents por copy will bring theme to you by mail, postpaid.

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Ave., NEW YORK

 

[lL

 

 

 
 

 

Containing the Most t Thrilling Adventures of the Celebrated
Government Scout “ Sen BILL” (Hon. William F. Cody)

 

 

 

 

170—Buftalo Bill’s Fair, Square Deal; or, The
Duke of the Dagger’s Dead Lock.

171—Buffalo Bill’s Bold Brigade; or, Injun Joe’s

: Burrow.
172—Buftalo Bill on a Hunt for Gold; or, The
_. Lost Mine of the Cimarrons.

173—Buffalo Bill’s Ride for Life; or, Fighting
the Border Cattle Thieves.

174—Buffalo Bill’s Double; or, The Mephisto of
the Prairie.

175—Buffalo Bill and the Claim Jumpers; or,
The Mystery of Hellgate Mine.

-176—Buffalo Bill’s Strategy; or, The Queen of
the Crater Cave.

177—Buffalo Bill in Morenci; or, The Cat of the

: Copper Crag. ¢

178—Buffalo Bill’s Dead Drop; or, The Ghost-

Scout of Colorado.

179—Buffalo Bill’s Texan Hazard; or, ‘The War

Trail of the Apaches.
180—Buffalo Bill’s Blindfold Duel;
- Death Feud in Arizona.
181—Buffalo Bill’s Mexican Feud; or, The Ban-

dits of Sonora.
182—Buffalo Bill’s Still Hunt; or, The Masked
Men of Santa Fé.
183—-Buffalo Bill’s Fiercest Fight; or, The Cap-
tive of the Apaches.
184—Buffalo Bill’s Navajo Ally; or, The War
with the Cave Dwellers.
185—Buffalo Bill’s Best Shot; or, Saving Uncle
Sam’s Troopers.
186—Buffalo Bill’s Girl Pard; or, The Mystery
of the Blindfold Club.
187—-Buffalo Bill’s Eagle Eye; or, The Battle of
the Staked Plains.
188—Buffalo Bill’s Arizona Alliance; or, Nav-
ajos Against Apaches, -
189—Buffalo Bill’s Mexican Adventure; or, The
White Indians of Yucatan.
190—Buffalo Bill After the Bandits; or, Chasing
the Wyoming Bank Robbers.
191—Buffalo Bill’s Red Trailer; or, The Hole-in-
the-Wail Outlaws of Wyoming.
i92—Buffalo Bill in the Hole-in-the-Wall; or,
Fighting the Wyoming Bank Robbers.

or, The

 

193—Buffalo Bill and the Bandit in Armor; or,
The Mysterious Horseman of the Moun-
tains.

194—Buffalo Bill and the Masked Mystery; or,

The Wild Riders of the Wilderness.
195—Buffalo Bill in the Valley of Death; or, The
Masked Brotherhood.
196—Buffalo Bill in the Land of Fire; or, Nick
Nomad, the Mountain Wanderer.
197—Buftalo Bill in the Den of Snakes; or, The
Search for a Ton of Gold.

198—Buffalo Bill’s Nebraskan Quest; or, The

Secret Brotherhood of the Platte.
199—Buffalo Bill and the Hounds of the Hills ;
or, The Traitor Troopet.

- 200—Buffalo Bill’s s Young Partner; or, The Out.

law Queen’s Cipher Message.

201—Buffalo Bill’s Great Search; or, Bagging

Bad Birds in Wyoming.

202—Buffalo Bill and the Boy in Blue; or, The
Ghost Dancers of the Bad Lands.

203—Buffalo Bill’s Long Chase; or, Nervy
Frank’s Leap for Life.

204—Buffalo Bill’s Mine Mystery; or, Conquer-
ing the Brotherhood of the Crimson
Cross..

205—Buffalo Bill’s Strategic Tactics; or, Trail-
ing the Terrible Thirty-nine.

206—Burffalo Bill’s Big Jack Pot; or, A Game
for a Life.

207—-Buffalo Bill’s Last Bullet; or, Solving the
Mystery of Robber’s Rock.

208—Buffalo Bill’s Deadliest Peril; or, The Pur-
suit of Black Barnett, the Outlaw.

209—Buffalo Bill’s Great’ Knife Duel; or, The ©
White Queen of the Sioux.

210—Buffalo Bill’s Blind Lead; or, The Treasure
of the Commander.

211—Buffalo Bill’s Sacrifice; or, For a Woman’ s
Sake.

212—Buffalo Bill’s ’Frisco Feud; or, California
Joe to the Rescue.

213—Buffalo Bill’s Diamond Hunt; or, The King
of Bonanza Gulch.

214—Buffalo Bill’s Avenging Hand; or, Lariat
Larry’s Last Throw.

 

 

 

All of the above numbers always on fomundls if you canmet got thonms from your
nowsdealor, five cents por copy will bring thems te you by mall, postpaidn

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Ave., NEW YORK

 

S

 

 

 

 

 
 

 
Exciting Tales of the Western Border |

The >

Ee uffalo Bill Stories}

HE upbuilding of the West was due to a large extent

to the brave scouts and pioneers who fought the

Redskins, using their own tactics, and who taught the

savages such a severe lesson that the settlers were destined
to remain unmolested.

Qe?

Foremost among these brave scouts stands Colonel
William F. Cody, or as he is better known, Buffalo Bill.
He is the hero of a thousand adventures on the plains.
Fhese are given to our boys only in the Buffalo Bill
Stories. They are bound to interest and please you.

ees

Beware of wild West imitations of the Buffalo Bill
Stories. They are about fictitious characters. The Library
containing the Buffalo Bill Stories is the only weekly per-
mitted to recount the adventures of Buffalo Bill, who is
known all over the world as ‘The King of Scouts.”

=== Price, 5 Cents——=

For Sale by all Newsdealers, or sent, post-
paid, upon receipt of price by the Publishers

| STREET & SMITH, 79 to 89 Seventh Avenue, NEW YORK J