CHAPTER XVI.

BUFFALO BILL’S DIFFICULT MISSION.

In answer to Buffalo Bill’s report of the iniquity he had unearthed in the Gallatin Valley, and the discovery that various tribes of Sioux were massing in the Bad Lands and raiding ranches and herders far and near, came an order to him from the authorities in Washington to get in touch with Sitting Bull himself, if possible. To the scout’s knowledge of Indian characteristics and customs and his well-known sympathies for the red man were intrusted a difficult mission of peace. He was to undertake to persuade the tribes to voluntarily abandon the Black Hills, and take up their abode on lands selected for them by the government in Indian Territory. It was the plan of the government to gather the various tribes in peaceful community there and provide for their sustenance by annual appropriation.

The powerful Sioux chief had refused to comply, and every resource of the government was being exhausted to bring about the desired end without resorting to arms.

Buffalo Bill went to what is now the respectable city of Livingston, on the Yellowstone River, and there awaited orders. Skibo, however, went south to the valley of the Little Popo-agie to take part in the house warming of his friends, the Staffords, and Nick Nomad had returned to Virginia City on business of his own.

On receiving his orders, Buffalo Bill at once sent word to Bozeman, where Nomad and Skibo would next report, for them to follow the Yellowstone, stopping at the military posts for instructions. Then, with Wild Bill and Little Cayuse, he himself began the journey down the Yellowstone.

At that critical period of the country’s Indian history it was destined to be one of the most dangerous and thrilling of the scout’s career. Everywhere the Sioux were retaliating for their wrongs, fancied or real, upon the white settlers. The young warriors, aroused by the call of the great chief, had accepted it as a general license for plunder. They had spread over a territory with a radius of hundreds of miles, and struck swiftly and relentlessly, ever replenishing their mounts from the best of the herds they raided.

To Buffalo Bill had been awarded a herculean task. With the daring Wild Bill Hickok and the faithful Cayuse, he set forth to meet a foe which one thousand mounted soldiers could not have hoped to subdue. But with peace in his mission, the brave plainsman hoped to accomplish that which rifle ball and sword could not do--the pacification of the tribes without bloodshed.

Scarce a day’s ride to the east the scout came upon the smouldering dugout of a settler and the mutilated bodies of the settler, his wife, and children, and on the grazing lands near by the carcasses of the slaughtered stock.

The bodies of the human victims of the red man’s fury were buried by the scout and his pards, who went on into a little ravine, where they camped for the night. They did not build a fire because of the evident proximity of blood-mad foes and the danger of a surprise.

The scout himself took the first watch, while his companions rolled in their blankets for a snatch of rest after a long day in the saddle.

It was a moonless, starless night, and the light wind seethed through the dead grass drearily, portending a storm, before which the night prowlers were silenced. On a little hillock near where the horses were picking out the green things from the sear, the scout stood silently, smoking his pipe and studying his surroundings. He fully realized the difficulties of his undertaking, and was at the same time aware that none of his superiors at Washington could in any measure grasp its possibilities. It was easy enough to tick off a message to a man two thousand miles away to hunt out the reputed head of a hostile people scattered over a territory as large as France and Germany combined, and convince this leader of the error of his ways, but its accomplishment was a far different matter.

But Buffalo Bill never offered excuses or demurred. Knowledge that his superiors were ignorant of the magnitude of their demands did not deter him from an attempt to obey. What he had accomplished only went to headquarters.

The scout suddenly jerked the pipe from his teeth, and bent forward, fixing his gaze on a point to northward, where the sky line was lighting up with lurid flashes.

For a moment the scout stood thus, and then bounded back to his companions, and shook them roughly.

“Out of it, pards!” he said; “there’s work for us to the northward.”

He was away again, jerking the lariat pins from the ground and cinching the saddles upon the horses.

Tn two minutes the three had gathered their possessions and were galloping toward the red glare which seemed several miles across the uneven country.

Twenty minutes’ sharp riding showed the scout that they were much nearer the fire than they had supposed. As they rode out on the rim of a basin they saw below them the full tragedy they had feared. Pulling in their horses, they could now hear the yells of red murderers at their work and see them darting about in the light of burning buildings, haystacks, and farming implements.

From a little hillside beyond now came a spit of flame, followed by the report of a gun.

“Some of the ranch folk are still alive and making a stand-off from a dugout, I should say,” observed the Laramie man.

“Yes, so I see, but the Indians are going to drive them out--see those fellows coming over the hill. They will scrape the gravel off the top of the dugout and set fire to it,” said the scout.

“There are only about twenty of the reds,” observed Hickok.

“And there are only about three of us,” answered Buffalo Bill. “But something must be done or the settler and his family will be murdered,” he went on. “Let us drop back behind this swell and ride farther north, then swing in behind those fellows who are preparing to fire the dugout, and charge. If we can’t stampede them we can at least give them a touch of heart failure.”

“My fingers are itching on the trigger, pard,” said Hickok.

In the rear of the little hill on which three Indians could be seen digging away the gravel and thatch, while other warriors were yelling, shooting, and dancing about the burning buildings to distract the attention of those imprisoned in the dugout, the scout and his pards approached more cautiously. They climbed to within a few rods of the three reds before the scout, drawing two revolvers, drove the spurs to Bear Paw’s flanks, and dashed forward.

The red men, taken wholly by surprise, were run down by the flying horses without a shot, and the animals, leaping the sharp embankment, like a cyclone swept across the intervening space, and, before the red warriors in the firelight could see what was approaching from the darkness beyond, they were greeted by a deadly volley as the three daring horsemen swept through and over them and disappeared in the darkness beyond.

The scout had so planned the charge as to strike the group of Indian ponies, and among them the pards madly galloped, yelling like demons and shooting right and left.

In a moment the little animals were scurrying away across the prairie, and the scout and his pards saw to it that they were hustled far, and widely scattered, before they began a wide detour that took them back toward the scene.

The Indians had been so completely demoralized by the sudden onslaught that they did not recover from their surprise until the ponies were far away in the darkness and the sound of their hoofbeats was rapidly lessening in the distance. Then the warriors scarcely knew which way to turn. Their first move was flight beyond the firelight, where they momentarily expected another mysterious and avenging force to spring.

The sounds of yelling and shooting had ceased; the fire had burned itself down to glowing brands, and the lowing of frightened cattle echoed here and there when Buffalo Bill, Hickok, and Cayuse for the second time approached the back side of the mound in which the dugout had been made.

Leaving Hickok and the Piute with the horses in a dip of the hill where they were safe from surprise, the scout made his way noiselessly over the hilltop, approached the door of the dugout, and spoke:

“Hello, there, within!”

A boy’s voice answered:

“Who is it?”

“A white friend; the Indians are gone.”

“’Tain’t no Injun trick to git us out?”

“No,” answered the scout in his kindliest voice; “a party of us have come to save you from the Indians, but if you are all right and comfortable perhaps you had better stay there till morning. Was anybody hurt?”

“No, not that we knows of--ye see, there’s only Nellie, an’ Kittie, an’ me; dad an’ mom has gone to a weddin’ up to Jenkinses’ ranch, an’ we’s afeared that mebbe the Injuns got ’em.”

“How did you happen to be in the dugout?”

“Oh, I seen the Injuns comin’ jes’ before dark, an’ I rushed the girls in here, an’ got all the guns an’ things I could before the reds got near enough to shoot.”

“Do you mean that a boy and two girls are all there are here?”

“That’s all--me an’ Nellie an’ Kittie--I’m fourteen, Nellie is twelve, an’ Kittie is ten,” answered the boy proudly.

“Well, you’re a plucky lad, and you made a good stand-off, but you needn’t worry any more to-night. Which way did your parents go?”

“Nor’east.”

“Which way did the Indians come?”

“Nor’west.”

“That is all right; I guess they didn’t get your father and mother, my boy, and as soon as daylight we’ll see if we can look them up.”

The scout and his pards spent the rest of the night near the dugout, determined, if need be, to defend the three little children with their last drop of blood.

But their services were not needed, for the Indians had slunk away to find their ponies, and if they succeeded in securing their mounts before light they gave the place where they had met such mysterious disaster a wide berth.

In the morning a bright, manly lad and his two handsome but shy little sisters came forth from the dugout.

“Too bad to bring up such children here!” exclaimed Hickok to the scout, but the boy overheard.

“It was dad’s cough,” said he apologetically. “Uncle John gave us the ranch, an’ dad an’ mom thought we could live here a few years till he gets stronger, an’ then go East, where the girls an’ me c’n go to school.

“But I guess dad an’ mom’ll be ’bout discouraged now, with no house to live in an’ some of our cows an’ sheep killed,” he went on chokingly.

The great-hearted Buffalo Bill cleared his throat before he spoke, and then he said:

“Well, my boy, you must cheer up your dad and mom. They have what is worth far more than home and live stock--three noble children. If your father is ill you must come to the front. You have shown that it is in you--I mean pluck and resourcefulness. Don’t ever forget to be honest and always guard your father and mother and sisters--not only their lives, but their happiness. Sometimes kind words are life savers. Don’t forget to always have words and looks of cheer for your father and mother, and to jealously watch over the purity of the names of your sisters.”

The lad’s eyes shone with the light of a new determination.

“Say, mister,” he began, “I was such a sissy last night that I cried when the girls did, because we thought how bad dad an’ mom’d feel ’thout any home, but I ain’t goin’ to cry no more as long’s we’re all alive--an’ if dad c’n get better we’ll be all right.”

The scout did not wish to dampen the lad’s courage, but he determined to tell the father to take his family to some of the larger settlements until the Sioux had been quieted.

“Were your father and mother to return this morning?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. Say, mister, do you care if I ask what your name is?”

“No, my boy; my name is Cody; sometimes called ‘Buffalo Bill.’”

The lad started back and gasped:

“Why, you’re a scout! I’ve read lots about you in the papers that Uncle John sends us. Mr. Cody, would you shake hands with me?”

The scout laughed heartily as he grasped the boy’s hand.

“He’s the right sort, Cody,” observed Hickok.

“What is your name?” asked the scout.

“William Fisher Corey.”

The scout and Hickok laughed.

“His initials are the same as yours, Cody,” the Laramie man said.

“Yes, I guess we’ll have to call him ‘Little Buffalo Bill.’”

The boy was delighted, and his sisters shouted:

“Hello, Little Buffalo Bill.”

The boy stood back, and admired the scout for a moment, and then said:

“I wish my dad was as big an’ strong an’--an’ handsome as you be.”

The scout blushed at the frank admiration of the boy, but laughingly turned it off and suggested that they round up the scattered cattle of the settler.