A week before he had started for Denver with important despatches, but had returned in a few hours to report signs of a large band of Indians on the move. He had warned Major Baldwin that Oak Heart and his braves might be intending a concerted attack upon Fort Advance; but duty called Buffalo Bill to the trail again, and he had hurried away on his Denver mission. That the danger he had dreaded was real, the surrounding of the fort several days later by the Sioux proved. Scouts had been sent for aid, but too late. None had gotten through the belt of redskins, and that belt was tightening each hour. The ammunition was low, and the awful end was not far off if help from some quarter did not appear. Even the appearance of Buffalo Bill inspired the beleaguered whites with hope. It seemed an almost hopeless attempt to reach the fort, for the red warriors were closing in upon him. Yet he rode on unshakenly. Down the ridge he sped, and out upon the plain. He was seemingly coming from the sunshine of life into the valley of death’s shadow! Why did he do it? Why did he risk his life so recklessly when only forty miles away he could have obtained help from the military post? There was some reason behind his daring act, and some cause for his delaying his effort by dragging the packhorse, now wounded, with him. All in the fort knew what this hero of the border had done to win fame among the mighty men of the frontier. He was chief and king among them. Yet what could he do now to help the besieged in the fortress, even did he reach the gate? That was the question! But hope revived, nevertheless, in every heart. Even the commandant, Major Frank Baldwin, began to look more hopeful as the scout drew closer to the fort. He had known Buffalo Bill long and well, and he knew of what marvels he was capable! Buffalo Bill had been born in a cabin home on the banks of the Mississippi River in the State of Iowa, and from his eighth year he had been a pioneer--an advance agent of civilization. At that age his father had removed to Kansas, and as a boy Billie Cody saw and took part in the bloody struggles in Kansas between the supporters of slavery and those who believed that the soil of Kansas should be unsmirched by that terrible traffic in human lives. Cody’s father, indeed, lost his life because of his belief in freedom, and the boy was obliged to help support the family at a tender age. He went to Leavenworth, and there hired out to Alex Majors, who of that day was the chief of the overland freighters into the far West.