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’S BEST BET. CHAPTER I. TEMPTED. “One thousand dollars for my life.” “You holds it cheap, pard.” “It is all I have with me.” “Guess not, fer men say as how you hes dimints ’bout yer clothes, ef yer goes broke with gold dust.” “I have diamonds with me; two splendid ones, and you shall have your choice if you aid me.” “And the thousand dollars, too, pard?” “Yes.” “Say both dimints and nine hundred dollars, an’ I’ll aid yer, an’ yer’ll then hev a hundred dollars to speckilate on, an’ yer is a born gambler, men say, so won’t go broke long.” The speakers were standing in the shadow of a large tree. The scene around them was picturesque in the extreme, for the open prairie stretched upon the one hand, with twoscore horses lariated out to feed upon the rich grass, and upon the other was a grove of timber, now illuminated by a dozen camp fires, around which sat a dashing, reckless set of men, smoking and talking over the dangers they had known. The bivouac in the woods, with the red glare of the fires, the horses picketed upon the prairie, and the silvery light of the moon casting a halo over all, made up a scene for the brush of an artist. But the two men standing in the shadow of the tree that stood alone, as it were, a few yards out of the grove, cared not for the scene of beauty before them. Their eyes were bent on each other, and their thoughts were bent on some stern purpose. One was a prisoner, the other his guard. The prisoner was none other than Kent King, known as the Gambler Guide, whom the Texas herders had taken prisoner, and were carrying with them to the Lone Star State, where the doom of death awaited him for crimes committed in the past. Now, as he stood by the side of the man, who was that night his guard, and who was known as Poker Dick, the glare of the firelight on the one side and the radiance of the moonlight upon the other showed that he was securely bound hand and foot. A bivouac or two more and the Revolver Riders, as the band of herders were called, would be in Santa Fe, toward which gay place they were destined, that they might pass a week or two there in spending their money, gambling and catering to their enjoyment in various ways.