An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill Part 6

This, I fancied, would convince them that I intended to return, but it didn't.

"Jim and I will go with you," said one of the thieves. "You can leave your gun here if you want to. You won't need it."

I saw that if I was to get away at all I would have to be extremely alert. These were old hands, and were not to be easily fooled. I felt it safer, however, to trust myself with two men than with six, so I volunteered to show the precious pair where I had left the horse, and led them to my camp.

The animal was secured, and as one of the men started to lead him up the stream I picked up the two sage-hens I had intended for my evening meal. The more closely we approached the dugout the less I liked the prospect of reentering it. One plan of escape had failed. I was sure the ruffians had no intention of permitting me to leave them and inform the stage people of their presence in the country.

One more plan suggested itself to me, and I lost no time in trying it.

Dropping one of the sage-hens, I asked the man behind me to pick it up.

As he was groping for it in the darkness, I pulled one of my Colt's revolvers, and hit him a terrific blow over the head. He dropped to the ground, senseless.

Wheeling about, I saw that the other man, hearing the fall, had turned, his hand upon his revolver. It was no time for argument. I fired and killed him. Then, leaping on my horse, I dug the spurs into his sides, and back down the trail we went, over the rocks and rough ground toward safety.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IT WAS NO TIME FOR ARGUMENT. I FIRED, AND KILLED HIM]

My peril was far from past. At the sound of the shot the six men in the dugout tumbled forth in hot haste. They stopped an instant at the scene of the shooting, possibly to revive the man I had stunned and to learn from him what had happened.

They were too wise to mount their horses, knowing that, afoot, they could make better time over the rocky country than I could on horseback. Steadily I heard them gaining, and soon made up my mind that if I was to evade them at all I must abandon my horse.

Jumping off, I gave him a smart slap with the b.u.t.t of my revolver which sent him down the valley. I turned and began to scramble up the mountainside.

I had climbed hardly forty feet when I heard them pa.s.s, following the sound of my horse's feet. I dodged behind a tree as they went by, and when I heard them firing farther down the trail I worked my way up the mountainside.

It was twenty-five miles to Horseshoe Station, and very hard traveling the first part of the way. But I got to the station, just before daylight, weary and footsore, but exceedingly thankful.

Tired as I was, I woke up the men at the station and told them of my adventure. Slade himself led the party that set out to capture my former hosts, and I went along, though nearly beat out.

Twenty of us, after a brisk ride, reached the dugout at ten o'clock in the morning. But the thieves had gone. We found a newly made grave where they had buried the man I had to kill, and a trail leading southwest toward Denver. That was all. But my adventure at least resulted in clearing the country of horse-thieves. Once the gang had gone, no more depredations occurred for a long time.

After a year's absence from home I began to long to see my mother and sisters again. In June, 1861, I got a pa.s.s over the stage-line, and returned to Leavenworth. The first rumblings of the great struggle that was soon to be known as the Civil War were already reverberating throughout the North; Sumter had been fired upon in April of that year.

Kansas, as every schoolboy knows, was previously the b.l.o.o.d.y scene of some of the earliest conflicts.

My mother's sympathies were strongly with the Union. She knew that war was bound to come, but so confident was she in the strength of the Federal Government that she devoutly believed that the struggle could not last longer than six months at the utmost.

Fort Leavenworth and the town of Leavenworth were still important outfitting posts for the soldiers in the West and Southwest. The fort was strongly garrisoned by regular troops. Volunteers were undergoing training. Many of my boyhood friends were enlisting. I was eager to join them.

But I was still the breadwinner of the family, the sole support of my sisters and my invalid mother. Not because of this, but because of her love for me, my mother exacted from me a promise that I would not enlist for the war while she lived.

But during the summer of 1861 a purely local company, know as the Red-Legged Scouts, and commanded by Captain Bill Tuff, was organized.

This I felt I could join without breaking my promise not to enlist for the war, and join it I did. The Red-Legged Scouts, while they cooperated with the regular army along the borders of Missouri, had for their specific duty the protection of Kansas against raiders like Quantrell, and such bandits as the James Boys, the Younger Brothers, and other desperadoes who conducted a guerrilla warfare against Union settlers.

We had plenty to do. The guerrillas were daring fellows and kept us busy. They robbed banks, raided villages, burned buildings, and looted and plundered wherever there was loot or plunder to be had.

But Tuff was the same kind of a fighting man as they, and working in a better cause. With his scouts he put the fear of the law into the hearts of the guerrillas, and they notably decreased their depredations in consequence.

Whenever and wherever we found that the scattered bands were getting together for a general raid we would at once notify the regulars at Fort Scott or Fort Leavenworth to be ready for them. Quantrell once managed to collect a thousand men in a hurry, and to raid and sack Lawrence before the troops could head them off. But when we got on their trail they were driven speedily back into Missouri.

In the meantime we took care that little mischief was done by the gangs headed by the James Boys and the Youngers, who operated in Quantrell's wake and in small bands.

In the spring of '63 I left the Red-Legged Scouts to serve the Federal Government as guide and scout with the Ninth Kansas Cavalry. The Kiowas and Comanches were giving trouble along the old Santa Fe trail and among the settlements of western Kansas. The Ninth Kansas were sent to tame them and to protect immigrants and settlers.

This was work that I well understood. We had a lively summer, for the Indians kept things stirring, but after a summer of hard fighting we made them understand that the Great White Chief was a power that the Indians had better not irritate. November, '63, I returned with the command to Leavenworth. I had money in my pockets, for my pay had been $150 a month, and I was able to lay in an abundant supply of provisions for my family.

On the twenty-third day of December my mother pa.s.sed away. Her life had been an extremely hard one, but she had borne up bravely under poverty and privation, supplying with her own teaching the education that the frontier schools could not give her children, and by her Christian example setting them all on a straight road through life.

Border ruffians killed her husband, almost within sight of her home.

She pa.s.sed months in terror and distress and, until I became old enough to provide for her, often suffered from direst poverty. Yet she never complained for herself; her only thoughts being for her children and the sufferings that were visited upon them because of their necessary upbringing in a rough and wild country.

My sister Julia was now married to Al Goodman, a fine and capable young man, and I was free to follow the promptings of an adventurous nature and go where my companions were fighting. In January, 1864, the Seventh Kansas Volunteers came to Leavenworth from the South, where they had been fighting since the early years of the war. Among them I found many of my old friends and schoolmates. I was no longer under promise not to take part in the war and I enlisted as a private.

In March of that year the regiment was embarked on steamboats and sent to Memphis, Tennessee, where we joined the command of General A.J.

Smith. General Smith was organizing an army to fight the illiterate but brilliant Confederate General Forrest, who was then making a great deal of trouble in southern Tennessee.

While we were mobilizing near Memphis, Colonel Herrick of our regiment recommended me to General Smith for membership in a picked corps to be used for duty as scouts, messengers, and dispatch carriers. Colonel Herrick recounted my history as a plainsman, which convinced the commander that I would be useful in this special line of duty.

When I reported to General Smith, he invited me into his tent and inquired minutely into my life as a scout.

"You ought to be able to render me valuable service," he said.

When I replied that I should be only too glad to do so, he got out a map of Tennessee, and on it showed me where he believed General Forrest's command to be located. His best information was that the Confederate commander was then in the neighborhood of Okolona, Mississippi, about two hundred miles south, of Memphis.

He instructed me to disguise myself as a Tennessee boy, to provide myself with a farm horse from the stock in the camp, and to try to locate Forrest's main command. Having accomplished this, I was to gather all the information possible concerning the enemy's strength in men and equipment and defenses, and to make my way back as speedily as possible.

General Smith expected to start south the following morning, and he showed me on the map the wagon road he planned to follow, so that I might know where to find him on my return. He told me before we parted that the mission on which he was sending me was exceedingly dangerous.

"If you are captured," he said, "you will be shot as a spy."

To this I replied that my Indian scouting trips had been equally dangerous, as capture meant torture and death, yet I had always willingly undertaken them.

"Do you think you can find Forrest's army?" he said. "Well, if you can't find an army as big as that you're a mighty poor scout," he said grimly.

General Smith then turned me over to the man who was in charge of what was called "the refuge herd," from which I found a mount built on the lines of the average Tennessee farm horse. This man also provided me with a suit of farmer's clothing, for which I exchanged my new soldier uniform, and a bag of provisions. Leading me about a mile from camp, he left me with the warning:

"Look out, young fellow. You're taking a dangerous trip." Then we shook hands and I began my journey.

I had studied carefully the map General Smith had shown me, and had a fairly accurate idea of the direction I was supposed to take. Following a wagon road that led to the south, I made nearly sixty miles the first night. The mare I had chosen proved a good traveler.

When morning came I saw a big plantation, with the owner's and negroes'

houses, just ahead of me. I was anxious to learn how my disguise was going to work, and therefore rode boldly up to the house of the overseer and asked if I could get rest and some sort of breakfast.

In response to his inquiries I said I was a Tennesseean and on my way to Holly Springs. I used my best imitation of the Southern dialect, which I can still use on occasion, and it was perfectly successful. I was given breakfast, my mare was fed, and I slept most of the day in a haystack, taking up my journey again immediately after dinner.

Thereafter I had confidence in my disguise, and, while making no effort to fall into conversation with people, I did not put myself out to evade anyone whom I met. None of those with whom I talked suspected me of being a Northern spy.

At the end of a few days I saw that I was near a large body of troops.

It was in the morning after a hard day-and-night ride. Fearing to approach the outposts looking weary and f.a.gged out, I rested for an hour, and then rode up and accosted one of them. To his challenge I said I was a country boy, and had come in to see the soldiers. My father and brother, I said, were fighting with Forrest, and I was almost persuaded to enlist myself.

My story satisfied the guard and I was pa.s.sed. A little farther on I obtained permission to pasture my horse with a herd of animals belonging to the Confederates and, afoot, I proceeded to the camp of the soldiers. By acting the part of the rural Tennesseean, making little purchases from the negro food-stands, and staring open-mouthed at all the camp life, I picked up a great deal of information without once falling under suspicion.