Part 1 (1/2)

An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W F Cody)

by Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)

CHAPTER I

I ah the Old West--the West that I knew and loved All my life it has been a pleasure to show its beauties, its uidance, saw it for the first ti at it through the eyes of reater pleasure to take withscenes of the old days,history, and listening to e-coach and the pony-express, their interest in this vast land of my youth, should be awakened, I should feel richly repaid

The Indian, tamed, educated and inspired with a taste for white collars and -pictures, is as numerous as ever, but not so picturesque On the little tracts of his great inheritance allotted hi out his own one Gone also is the stagecoach whose progress his pilgries often used to interrupt Gone is the pony express, whose marvelous efficiency could co flashed over the telegraph wires Gone are the very bone-gatherers who laboriously collected the bleaching relics of the great herds that once dotted the prairies

But the West of the old ti characters, its stern battles and its tremendous stretches of loneliness, can never be blotted from my mind Nor can it, I hope, be blotted from the memory of the American people, to whom it has now becoe to spendyears on the frontier I have known and served with commanders like Sherman, Sheridan, Miles, Custer and AA Carr--e

I have known and helped to fight with many of the ood and bad, gunmen as well as inspired prophets of the future, have been my camp companions Thus, I know the country of which I a have known it

Recently, in the hope of giving pered h the courtesy of the War and Interior Departments I had the help of the soldiers and the Indians

Now that this work has been done I aain in the saddle and at your service for what I trust will be a pleasant and perhaps instructive journey over the old trails We shall omit the hazards and the hardshi+ps, but often we shall leave the iron roads over which the Pullman rolls and, back in the hills, see the painted Indians winding up the draws, or watch the on-train In ht the West to the East--under a tent Now I hope to bring the people of the East and of the New West to the Old West, and possibly here and there to supply new material for history

I shall try to vary the journey, for frequent changes of scenes are grateful to travelers I shall show you some of the humors as well as the excite-place will be at sunrise--the sunrise of the New West, with its waving grain-fields, fenced flocks and splendid cities, drawing upon the mountains for the water to make it fertile, and upon the whole world for men to make it rich

I was born on a farm near Leclair, Scott County, Iowa, February 26, 1846 My father, Isaac Cody, had erated to as then a frontier State He and his people, as well as my mother, had all dwelt in Ohio

I ree enough as they slouched about the village streets or loped along the roads on their ponies But they bore no hostility toward anything save work and soap and water

We were comfortable and fairly prosperous on the little farm My mother, whose maiden name was Mary Ann Leacock, took an active part in the life of the neighborhood An education was scarce in those days

Even school teachers did not always possess it Mother's education was far beyond the average, and the local school board used to require all applicants for teachers' position to be examined by her before they were entrusted with the tender intellects of the pioneer children

But the love of adventure was in father's blood The railroad--the only one I had ever seen--extended as far as Port Byron, Illinois, just across the Mississippi When the discovery of gold in California in 1849 set the whole country wild, this railroad began to bring the Argonauts, bound for the long overland wagon journey across the Plains

Naturally father caught the excitement In 1850 he made a start, but it was abandoned--why I never knew But after that he was not content with Iowa In 1853 our faroods and chattels were converted into money And in 1854 we all set out for Kansas, which was soon to be opened for settlers as a Territory

Tagons carried our household goods A carriage was provided for on built, and stocked it with red blankets, beads, and other goods hich to tempt the Indians My only brother had been killed by a fall from a horse, so I was second in command, and proud I was of the job

My uncle Elijah kept a general store at Weston, Missouri, just across the Kansas line He was a large exporter of hemp as well as a trader

Also he was a slave-owner

Weston was our first objective Father had deterin a new life in this stirring country Had he foreseen the dreadful consequences to hiht have rerown up an Iowa farh that now seems impossible

Thirty days of a journey that was a constant delight to ons and reat joy father took me with him on his first trip into Kansas--where he was to pick out his claion I shall never forget the thrill that ran throughto the block-house at Fort Leavenworth, said:

”Son, you now see a real military fort for the first tioons as they called the in the sunlight Artillery was ru and wheeling About the Post were men dressed all in buckskin with coonskin caps or broad-brimmed slouch hats--real Westerners of who about--all friendly, but a new and different kind of Indians from any I had seen--Kickapoos, Possawatomies, Delawares, Choctaws, and other tribes, of which I had often heard Everything I saw fascinated me