To show how from his early boyhood, he drifted into the life of the "wild west," and which has become second nature to him, I quote the following from "The Life of Buffalo Bill."
His father, Isaac Cody, was one of the original surveyors of Davenport, Iowa, and for several years drove stage between Chicago and Davenport. Was also justice of the peace, and served one term in the legislature from Iowa. Removed to Kansas in 1852, and established a trading post at Salt Creek Valley, near the Kickapoo Agency. At this time Kansas was occupied by numerous tribes of Indians who were settled on reservations, and through the territory ran the great highway to California and Salt Lake City, traveled by thousands of gold-seekers and Mormons.
Living so near the Indians, "Billy" soon became acquainted with their language, and joined them in their sport, learning to throw the lance and shoot with bow and arrow.
In 1854 his father spoke in public in favor of the Enabling Act, that had just passed, and was twice stabbed in the breast by a pro-slavery man, and by this class his life was constantly threatened; and made a burden from ill health caused by the wounds, until in '57, when he died. After the mother and children all alone had prepared the body for burial, in the loft of their log cabin at Valley Falls, a party of armed men came to take the life that had just gone out.
Billy, their only living son, was their mainstay and support, doing service as a herder, and giving his earnings to his mother. The first blood he brought was in a quarrel over a little school-girl sweet-heart, during the only term of school he ever attended, and thinking he had almost killed his little boy adversary, he fled, and took refuge in a freight wagon going to Fort Kearney, which took him from home for forty days, and then returned to find he was freely forgiven for the slight wound he had inflicted. Later he entered the employ of the great freighters, Russell, Majors & Waddell, his duty being to help with a large drove of beef cattle going to Salt Lake City to supply Gen. A. S. Johnson's army, then operating against the Mormons, who at that time were so bitter that they employed the help of the Indians to massacre over-land freighters and emigrants. The great freighting business of this firm was done in wagons carrying a capacity of 7,000 pounds, and drawn by from eight to ten teams of oxen. A train consisted of twenty-five wagons. We must remember this was before a railroad spanned the continent, and was the only means of transportation beyond the states.
It was on his first trip as freight boy that Billy Cody killed his first Indian. When just beyond old Ft. Kearney they were surprised by a party of Indians, and the three night herders while rounding up the cattle, were killed. The rest of the party retreated after killing several braves, and when near Plum Creek, Billy became separated from the rest, and seeing an Indian peering at him over the bluffs of the creek, took aim and brought to the dust his first Indian. This "first shot" won for him a name and notoriety enjoyed by none nearly so young as he, and filled him with ambition and daring for the life he has since led. Progressing from freight boy to pony express rider, stage driver, hunter, trapper, and Indian scout in behalf of the government, which office he filled well and was one of the best, if not the very best, scouts of the plains; was married in March, '65, to Miss Louisa Fredrica, of French descent, of St. Louis; was elected to legislature in 1871, but the place was filled by another while he continued his exhibitions on the stage.
When any one is at loss for a name for anything they wish to speak of, they just call it buffalo —— and as a consequence, there are buffalo gnats, buffalo birds, buffalo fish, buffalo beans, peas, berries, moss, grass, burrs, and "Buffalo Bill," a title given to William Cody, when he furnished buffalo meat for the U.P.R.R. builders and hunted with the Grand Duke Alexis, and has killed as high as sixty-nine in one day.
I did not at the time of visiting North Platte think of writing up the country so generally, so did not make extra exertions to see and learn of the country as I should have done. And as there was a shower almost every afternoon of my stay, we did not get to drive out as Miss Arta and I had planned to do. North Platte, the county-seat of Lincoln county, is located 291 miles west of Omaha, and is 2,789 feet above the sea level, between and near the junction of the North and South Platte rivers. The U.P.R.R. was finished to this point first of December, 1866, and at Christmas time there were twenty buildings erected on the town site. Before the advent of the railroad, when all provisions had to be freighted, one poor meal cost from one to two dollars.
North Platte is now nicely built up with good homes and business houses, and rapidly improving in every way. The United States Land office of the western district embraces the government land of Cheyenne, Keith, Lincoln, a part of Dawson, Frontier, Gosper, and Custer counties and all unorganized territory. All I can see of the surrounding country is very level and is used for grazing land, as stock raising is the principal occupation of the people. Alkali is quite visible on the surface, but Mrs. C. says both it and the sand are fast disappearing, and the rainfall increasing. No trees to be seen but those which have been cultivated.
Mrs. C. in speaking of the insatiable appetite and stealthy habits of the Indians, told of a dinner she had prepared at a great expense and painstaking for six officers of Ft. McPherson, whom Mr. C. had invited to share with him, and while she was receiving them at the front door six Indians entered at a rear door, surrounded the table, and without ceremony or carving knife, were devouring her nicely roasted chickens and highly enjoying the good things they had found when they were discovered, which was not until she led the way to the dining room, thinking with so much pride of the delicacies she had prepared, and how they would enjoy it.