An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody)Buffalo Bill
History
An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody)
Buffalo Bill
Buffalo Bill, 1846-1917; Entertainers -- United States -- Biography; Pioneers -- West (U.S.) -- Biography; West (U.S.) -- Biography
As soon as Terry had read the dispatches he halted his command, which
was already under way. Then he rode on ahead to overtake General Crook,
with whom he held a council. At General Terry's urgent request I
accompanied him on a scout for Dry Fork, on the Missouri. We marched
three days, a little to the east of north. When we reached the buffalo
range we discovered some fresh Indian signs. The redskins had been
killing buffalo, and the evidences of their work were very plain. Terry
now called on me to carry dispatches to Colonel Rice, who was still
encamped at the mouth of Glendive Creek on the Yellowstone. This was
about eighty miles distant.
Night had set in with a storm. A drizzling rain was falling, which made
the going slippery, and made the blackness of the Western Plains still
blacker. I was entirely unacquainted with the section of the country
through which I was to ride. I therefore traveled all night and
remained in seclusion in the daytime. I had too many plans for the
future to risk a shot from a hostile redskin who might be hunting white
men along my way.
At daylight I unsaddled my mount and made a hearty breakfast of bacon
and hardtack. Then I lighted my pipe, and, making a pillow of my
saddle, lay down to rest.
The smoke and the fatigue of the night's journey soon made me drowsy,
and before I knew it I was fast asleep. Suddenly I was awakened by a
loud rumbling noise. I seized my gun instantly, and sprang toward my
horse, which I had picketed in a hidden spot in the brush near by where
he would be out of sight of any passing Indians.
Climbing a steep hill, I looked cautiously over the country from which
the noise appeared to come. There before me was a great herd of
buffalo, moving at full gallop. Twenty Indians were behind it, riding
hard and firing into the herd as they rode. Others near by were cutting
up the carcasses of the animals that had already been killed.
I saddled my horse and tied him near me. Then I crawled on my stomach
to the summit of the hill, and for two hours I lay there watching the
progress of the chase.
When the Indians had killed all the buffalo they wanted they rode off
in the direction whence they had come. This happened to be the way that
I hoped to go on my own expedition. I made up my mind that their camp
was located somewhere between me and Glendive Creek. I was not at all
eager to have any communication with these gentlemen. Therefore, when I
resumed my journey at nightfall, I made a wide detour around the place
where I believed their camp would be. I avoided it successfully,
reaching Colonel Rice's camp just after daybreak.
The colonel had been fighting Indians almost every day since he
encamped at this point. He was anxious that Terry should know of this
so that reënforcements might be sent, and the country cleared of the
redskins. Of course it fell to my lot to carry this word back to Terry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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