A great railroad strike was going on. Some sensational newspapers in St. Louis were helping to keep it up by encouraging the strikers. A month before, the same journals had been obsequious to the railroads. “Some day,” said the General one morning, throwing down the newspaper, “these pusillanimous scoundrels of editors will be for calling on me and on the country to save them from the very ruin they are now encouraging. They are pulling the house down on their own heads. If it could fall on them, only! But little newspapers care for the sorrow they carry to human breasts, if they can only start a sensation.” He hated professional politicians even as much as such editors, but he discriminated between a man going to Congress for bread and butter, and a man who tried to labor for his country. Even Blaine, whom he so cordially honored, he thought a spoilsman at times, not always a statesman. In the home here, Mrs. Sherman called him “Cump,” and that was the title he liked to hear. The name conveyed something dearer and better to him than titles and rank. He had no love for any of these empty sounding baubles, anyway, and never sought a promotion in his life. One evening he was to address the Ransom Grand Army Post at St. Louis, and in the name of some patriotic man present a flag. He asked me to go along. After supper I came down and found him dressed and waiting for me in the drawing-room. “Where is your Grand Army badge?” he asked, observing I had none. I explained that mine was at home in Iowa. “You must have one,” he said, “I’ll give you this,” and taking the emblem from his breast he fastened it on my coat. I treasure it still. It is an heirloom for my son. He took me to see Buffalo Bill, the Indian fighter, one day. It was at the Fair Ground. The scout came to the General’s box with all the fair manner of a high-born gentleman, saluted, bowed, advanced, took the extended hand and met a genuine soldier’s greeting. Sherman had known him on the plains, and respected him as a man of worth. “That man’s a genius,” he said, when Cody went down to the ring, “and he believes in himself. That’s half the battle of life.” Sherman, like Buffalo Bill, believed in himself. He knew what he could do, and did it, and asked neither praise nor pay. That evening, one of Sherman’s daughters and a girl friend visiting in the family, danced with Buffalo Bill at a great ball. “He was the best dancer of them all,” said one of the girls on coming home. “_Just too lovely for anything_,” added the other. And this was the man of the prairies, the hunter, the scout. Environment doesn’t count for anything, after all.