With such energy as this on his part, Billy Cody was not very long in learning to write his name upon the pay-roll instead of making his mark, though ever since, I may add, he has made his mark in the pages of history.
All through his life he was ever the devoted son and brother, and true as steel to his friends, for he has not been spoiled by the fame he has won, while to-day his firmest friends are the officers of the army with whom he has served through dangers and hardships untold, as proof of which he was freely given the indorsements of such men as Sherman, Sheridan, Gen. Nelson A. Miles, Generals Carr, Merritt, Royal, and a host of others.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE PLATTE VALLEY.
From the dawn of history to the present time, civilization has followed the valleys. From the Garden of Eden which was in the valley of the Euphrates to modern times the water courses have been the highways of civilization, and made the Tiber and the Thames, the Rhine and the Rhone famous in the annals of the world's progress. In our own country this fact has been especially illustrated. The valley of the Rio Grande del Norte was the pathway of the Spaniard in his march to the northward, and it is one of the curious facts of history that, before the Pilgrims had landed on Plymouth Rock, the adventurous cavaliers of Spain had penetrated the center of the continent and discovered the sources of the great river in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado.
It was along the Connecticut and the Hudson, the Delaware and the Susquehanna, the Ohio and the Mississippi, that the pioneers of the republic pushed their way westward and planted the civilization which has enjoyed so substantial and prosperous a growth. And when the pioneer resumed his westward march to the Rocky Mountains, his trains lay along the Missouri, the Arkansas, and the Platte, thus giving to the valley of the Platte an historic place in the records of the nation's advancement.
The Louisiana Purchase, within whose boundaries lay the great valley of the Platte and its tributaries, was completed in 1804, by President Thomas Jefferson. It was an act of statesmanship worthy of the man who had drafted the Declaration of Independence, and assured the young republic a future little dreamed of by the men of that day, but which we have lived to realize. Two years later, in 1806, Lieut. Zebulon Pike received an order to explore the newly acquired national possessions, and to find the headwaters of the Platte River. In pursuance of the order, Lieutenant Pike marched up the Arkansas to the Fountaine Qui Bouille, discovered and ascended the great peak which bears his name, entering the South Park from the present site of Cañon City by the Current Creek route. Aside from his discovery of the headwaters of the Platte, Lieutenant Pike's expedition was more largely devoted to the Arkansas and the Rio Grande than to this valley.