In November, 1911, Colonel Cody announced his retirement. He was then sixty-seven years old and reputed to be worth $3,000,000. He went to his ranch at Cody, Wyoming, and tried to settle down. But the old spirit of adventure lured him back to the sawdust arena. This time he was not so fortunate. He lost money on every hand, and finally the celebrated show went under the auctioneer's hammer. Friends came to his rescue, however, and bid in his famous white horse, Ishan, which the Colonel always rode at the head of his roughriders. The old scout had kept his courage, too, and he announced his intention of trying it again; he even joined a circus company as one of the regular troupe of performers. But his race was run, his day was done. Even his iron constitution had been weakened by the trials and privations of seventy-two years of strenuous life. He had lived up to the very last inch of his allotted span. He had played hard and he had fought hard and in the end he died hard, amazing even his experienced physicians by his extraordinary vitality. The doctors had told him that the end was near, but he only laughed and called for a pack of cards. "You can't kill the old scout," he said, smilingly. "Let's have a game of high-five." Yet even this undaunted spirit was forced to bow to mortal necessity, and a day or two later he relapsed into a state of unconsciousness from which he was never to emerge. His death attracted the notice of two continents. The newspapers printed columns of obituaries; the State of Colorado ordered a public funeral in his honor; it was the passing of a heroic figure in American annals. All in all, he must rank as the greatest of scouts and the most gallant of Indian fighters. He never knew fear. His life was in danger hundreds of times, and yet he always had the better of his adversary. He lived a free life among wild surroundings, but he was always to be found on the side of law and order. He was a dead shot, a splendid horseman, and an absolutely fearless fighter. The men who knew him best, including many well-known officers of the army, all united in praising the bravery, honesty, and modesty of this true product of the old wild West. His place can never be filled; he was a relic of the days that are gone, never to return. THE ADVENTURES OF BUFFALO BILL I CROSSING THE PLAINS In the early settlement of Kansas common-school advantages were denied us, and to provide a means for educating the few boys and girls in the neighborhood of my home, a subscription school was started in a small log cabin that was built on the bank of a creek that ran near our house. My mother took great interest in this school, and at her persuasion I returned home and became enrolled as a pupil, where I made satisfactory progress until, as the result of a quarrel with a schoolmate, I left the town and started across the plains with one of Russell, Majors & Waddell's freight trains.