Lightning Jo, the Terror of the Santa Fe Trail: A Tale of the Present Day

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

The scouts, or hunters, had turned their time to good account, as was shown by a number of buffalo carcasses, or rather the choice portions of such, supported across the saddles of their animals; the appearance of the beasts, too, indicated that many of them had been subjected to the hardest kind of riding.

A few words explained to Lightning Jo the business about to be undertaken, and he at once assumed his position as leader of the company that had just prepared to start, the colonel withdrawing into the fort again, where it was his manifest duty to remain, while the desperate attempt to relieve the beleaguered party in Dead Man’s Gulch was being made.

The scout did not take a fresh horse, and when pressed to do so, he declared that his mustang was as capable of a fifty mile tramp, as he was upon the morning he started upon the hunt from which he had just returned.

“Come, boys! business is business,” said he, in his crisp, sharp tone, as his steed carried him by one or two bounds to the head of the cavalcade he was to lead. “Come, Gibbons, keep yer place alongside me, and yer can explain as we ride along.”

And as the company of brave men gallop to the southward on their errand of mercy, each man a hero, and all with set teeth and an unalterable determination in their hearts to do all that mortal man could do to save the despairing little band that had sent its wail of anguish across the prairie, we will improve the occasion by glancing at the remarkable man who acted as their leader.

Lightning Jo had gained his appellation from the wonderful quickness of his movements, and his almost miraculous skill as a scout. His celerity of movement was incredible, while his equally astonishing strength excited the wonder of the most famous bordermen of the day. It was a well established fact that Lightning Jo, a couple of years before, at Fort Laramie, had been forced into a personal encounter with a badgering pugilist, who was on his return to the States from California, and who had the reputation of being one of the most scientific hitters that had ever entered the prize ring, and who on the occasion referred to was so completely polished off by Jo, that he lay a month at the fort before he recovered from his injuries.

It was said, and there was every reason to believe it, that he was capable of running miles with the speed of the swiftest mustang of the prairie; that he had traversed the Llano Estacado back and forth, times without number, on foot, passing through the very heart of the Comanche country, without any attempt to disguise himself, or conceal his identity in any way; and yet there was not a mark upon his person to attest the dangers through which he had passed scathless and unharmed.

His horsemanship was perfect in its way, and no living Comanche—the most wonderful riders on the Western Continent—had been known to exceed, and very few to equal him. For the amusement of those gathered at some of the posts which he had visited, he had ridden his mustang at full speed and bare back, throwing himself from one side to the other, and firing from beneath the neck or belly of the animal, picking up his hat from the earth when galloping, at the same headlong rate, striking a match upon a stone on the ground and carrying the blaze lighted in his hand. He had thrown the lasso, with such skill, as to catch the hoof of the plunging buffalo, and then by a flirt of the rope, flung the kicking brute flat upon his side, as the daring rider thundered past, and slapped his hat in the eyes of the terrified animal. He could fling the coil with the unerring certainty of a rifle shot, and would manipulate the rope into as many fantastical convolutions as a Chinese conjurer.

His prowess with the rifle was equally marked, and the tales of his achievements with his favorite weapon were so incredible in many instances, that we would not be believed were we to repeat them. He carried a long, murderous-looking weapon, the mountings of which were of solid silver, and had been presented to him by one of his many friends, whom he had been the instrument of saving.