Colonel Cody’s fame had reached the East long before, and a great many New Yorkers went out to see him and join in his buffalo hunts, including such men as August Belmont, James Gordon Bennett, Anson Stager, and J. G. Heckscher. In entertaining these visitors at Fort McPherson, Cody was accustomed to arrange Wild-West exhibitions. In return his friends invited him to visit New York. It was upon seeing his first play in the metropolis that Cody conceived the idea of going into the show business. Assisted by Ned Buntline, novelist, and Colonel Ingraham, he started his “Wild West” show, which later developed and expanded into “A Congress of the Roughriders of the World,” first presented at Omaha, Nebraska. In time it became a familiar yearly entertainment in the great cities of this country and Europe. Many famous personages attended the performances, and became his warm friends, including Mr. Gladstone, the Marquis of Lorne, King Edward, Queen Victoria, and the Prince of Wales, now King of England. At the outbreak of the Sioux, in 1890 and 1891, Colonel Cody served at the head of the Nebraska National Guard. In 1895 Cody took up the development of Wyoming Valley by introducing irrigation. Not long afterward he became judge advocate general of the Wyoming National Guard. Colonel Cody (Buffalo Bill) died in Denver, Colorado, on January 10, 1917. His legacy to a grateful world was a large share in the development of the West, and a multitude of achievements in horsemanship, marksmanship, and endurance that will live for ages. His life will continue to be a leading example of the manliness, courage, and devotion to duty that belonged to a picturesque phase of American life now passed, like the great patriot whose career it typified, into the Great Beyond. BUFFALO BILL ENTRAPPED. CHAPTER I. IN A TIGHT PLACE. One June night in the early seventies, the sole occupant of a lonely cabin high up in the Rockies had a bad dream. Pursued by a legion of monsters, he found himself on the verge of a bottomless pit. While he choked with terror, a terrific noise as of the bursting of a bomb dissipated the horrible illusion to which his brain had been subjected, and he awoke gasping and wild-eyed. His face was covered with a cold perspiration, and for some moments he was incapable of movement. With the return of his wits came sounds that he could distinguish. They brought him to his feet instantly. Not far away had come a succession of pistol and rifle shots. As he hurriedly dressed, a bright light streamed in at the window. The room was brilliantly lighted up, and the man could hear the crackling of timbers, and knew that the cabin of his nearest neighbor was in flames. Opening the door, he stepped out into the open air. The sky for a great distance presented a lurid spectacle.