Part 11 (2/2)
”Are yon firing blank cartridges?”
”No If it becaes around here ould soon lose some of our e to dishwashers, carries a pistol”
”Why?”
”To keep law and order”
That puzzled my wife She said that in St Louis policemen kept law and order, and wanted to knoe didn't have them to do it out here I infor in a town like this, which was perfectly true
Ontrip a few days later I e-coach, and who over the town site froht I had selected a good town site--and I agreed with hi country with hi on a buffalo hunt He had never killed a buffalo, he said He wanted to get a fine head to take back with hirateful if I would take hiot a nice head if he ca rode down to his hotel He was dressed in a s costuons following to gather up the meat we should kill
As we rode out I explained to him how I hunted ”I kill as ons co afterward and the butchers cut the meat and load it” When I went out on my ”run” I told him where to shoot to kill But whenback crestfallen He had failed to get his buffalo down, although he had shot hi withto change saddles with you and let you ride the best buffalo horse on the Plains”
He was astonished and delighted to think I would let hiham, the most famous buffalo horse in the West When we drew near the herd I pointed out a fine four-year-old bull with a splendid head I galloped alongside Brigham spotted the buffalo I wanted, and after my companion's third shot the brute fell My pupil was overjoyed with his success, and appeared to be so grateful to me that I felt sure I should be able to sell him three or four blocks of Rome real estate at least
I invited him to take dinner, and served as part of the repast thehe looked me up and told me he wanted to make a proposition to ht I was the one as going to hth of this town site,” he said
The nerve of this proposal took hth of my on site as a reward for what I had done for him
I told hi-hobble him and send hinaniht in front of my own house My wife overheard it, and also my reply
As I rode away, he called out that he wanted to explain, but I was thoroughly disgusted
”I have no time to listen to you,” I shouted over et raders twentyThree days afterward I rode back over the ridge above the town of Rome and looked down on it
I took severaltorn down and carted away The balloon-fra apart section by section
I could see at least a hundred tea that made up the town over the prairies to the eastward
My pupil at buffalo hunting was Dr Webb, president of the town-site company of the Kansas Pacific After I had ridden aithout listening to his explanations he had invited the citizens of Rome to come over and see where the new railroad division town of Hays City was to be built He supplied theons that had been lent him by the Government to assist him in the location of a nen The distance was only a ot a crowd At the town site of Hays City hethe people who he was and what he proposed to do He said the railroad would build its repair-shops at the nen, and there would be employment for many men, and that Hays City was destined soon to be the most important place on the Plains He had already put surveyors to work on the site Lots, he said, were then on the market, and could be had far more reasonably than the lots in Roan to pick out their lots in the nen Webb loaned theoods and chattels, together with the tialloped into Ro save eneral store, and a few sod-houses and dugouts
Mrs Cody and the baby were sitting on a drygoods box when I rode up to the store My partner, Rose, stood near by, whistling and whittling
”My word, Rose! What has become of our town!” I cried Rose could make no answer Mrs Cody said:
”You wrote ot no time to talk about that now,” I said ”What ht to have taken Mr Webb's offer,” was her answer
”Who the dickens is Webb?” I stor ”Bill,” he said, ”that little flapper-jack was the president of the town-site company for the KP Railroad, and he's run such a bluff on our citizens about a nen site that is going to be a division-point that they've all moved over there”