There are dance-halls in many of the little towns within the cow-boy’s range. They are usually built of sod or adobe, and are about fifty feet long and thirty feet wide. In one corner there is a bar; and in the back end of the building are several small rooms in which stay the female dancers. They are usually Mexican girls. Musicians are employed to stay here all the time; and every night some of the cow-boys, Mexicans, or miners come in,—often from twenty and thirty miles,—for a dance. At the end of each set each boy must take his partner to the bar. Drinks and cigars are usually two bits apiece, and the lowest is fifteen cents apiece or two for two bits. If it is found out that there are boys in who have much money, the bar-keeper posts the musicians and the sets are cut very short. As long as the boys will spend money the dance is kept up, if it is all night; but so soon as the money stops the dance stops. The profits are large, and among these reckless boys a shrewd hall-man often clears from one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars in a single night. Knowing the character and disposition of the persons who attend these balls, and considering the attending circumstances upon these occasions, the scenes can be readily imagined. Desperadoes gather in from all directions, boys meet here to settle quarrels, and cow-boys and Mexicans being natural enemies, there are often mighty lively times. Each boy is ambitious to be a bad man; and after they get pretty well fired with liquor the recklessness commences and the wild spirit begins to glitter. Six-shooters are jerked, knives are drawn, and with wild yells bottles and glasses are shot from the bar, lights are fired down, and the basest profanity floats out of the appertures of the earthly hell upon the prairie breeze. Old grudges are stirred up, bullies try to pick a quarrel from others and then strike them down and try to run the house. One boy will imagine himself insulted by some other, and getting his friends together a fight is begun. Boys are shot down upon the dancing-floor, and each man tries to be the bloodiest. The consequences of these wicked balls are often very bitter, and there are some sickening scenes to be viewed in the morning light. I recollect being at Las Animas, Colorado, one night when there was a dance at the old Alhambra (a Mexican dance-hall), and I went to the ball to see how things were carried on and to learn the Colorado styles. I got there early in the evening, and the Mexicans were having a big fandango in six-eight time. About nine o’clock the cow-boys began to gather in, when things began to warm up and the scene put on a new aspect. The cow-boys got wild with liquor, and riding around the hall yelling and shooting, they made the old adobe dust fly like sand in a hurricane. Bullets whistled in every direction, and when one cut through my beard I concluded things were getting a little warm; but wanting to see it all, I got behind the bar with the tender. There were a good many Mexicans in the hall, and the two parties began to contend for the house. There were two doors in front, and three boys arranged themselves in a line at either door. The doors were then thrown open by others, and leaning low upon the ponies, the six boys plunged their spurs into the sides of their animals and like a flash rushed into the house. They rode up to the lights and struck them down with their six-shooters; and then in the darkness the bloody contest was hand-to-hand. The women screamed, the horses snorted, the cow-boys shot, and the Mexicans cut. I knew the contest was bloody, and I was anxious to know how the thing was coming on; but the horses were prancing around so furiously, and it was too dark to dodge the bullets that were flying like rocks in an earthquake, so I kept behind the bar and waited for the curtain to rise. In about five minutes the noise abated; and when the lamps were lighted a horrible spectacle met my view. The ponies were all out; but three of the riders were horribly mutilated and bleeding upon the floor. Two Mexicans (greasers) were also riddled with bullets and gasping in death, while others were badly wounded. I went out among the cow-boys and found that some of them were also deeply gashed and bleeding. They had got the worst of the battle; and being late in the night they concluded to disperse and come in some other night for some more fun. There was not a boy in the crowd that appeared to be in the least affected with the loss of his comrades, and with wild whoops they rushed off like the wind. Going into the hall I found the band playing, and the Mexicans were preparing to continue the ball. The five bodies were dragged up in the corner and a blanket thrown over them, and in the blood of the expired men the fandango was carried on till the morn began to dawn. This was a regular dance-hall scene, and not in any way an unusual one. I attended balls at a number of different halls, and witnessed many bloody riots.
Of course, these halls are not allowed near towns of much size or importance, where men live with their families, but are mostly in small places, and in many cases are far out upon the range. They are built in all shapes. The very air is contaminated with the vicious venom that arises from their walls like the odor from hell. Some are built by digging into the ground a few feet and then putting a few feet of adobes on top, making the ceiling just high enough for a man to walk under; and when the fiends gather in the nights are made hideous and the noise of the riots sounds like the rumbling of the infernal regions. These houses are the manufactories of evil and the polluted fountains from which untold misery and wickedness have been drunk by the unfortunate ones who traveled thither. Many a noble though ambitious young man, the pride of a happy family and the delight of his fellow-comrades, has gone west to seek his fortune, like his forefathers in years gone by. The location is often made in these wild places, and when the cultivated delicacy and human timidity are once a little numbed, he walks with his comrades and is soon led to their venomous dens. Though it may be a little shocking at first, there is nothing but his own lonely conscience to discourage him and warn him of the enormity and danger; and under the circumstances the ordinary man is tempted and will go down. When he visits these houses the seeds are sown in his breast that the oxygen of prairie air will hasten to maturity.
Every man who visits these places has his life in his hand; and it is as easily dropped as though it were the most insignificant article. Often when a fond family is daily looking for a loved one to return, his spirit is winging the subtile air and his bones are bleaching upon the prairie, the secret, like the body, melting into clay. Of course, as was said, these vile places and extremely wicked inhabitants are principally found in small towns in the midst of the unsettled country or where these earthly hells are pitched in the midst of the plain; for there are some pretty little towns and good people. It appears somewhat strange that man—and not only man—will so degenerate, and become so extremely wicked and beastly; but it appears that the average person, when living in a wild, unsettled country, surrounded with so much evil, loses all his refinement and develops into a new creature.
While picturing western life and relating frontier adventures it may be proper and perhaps interesting to many to give a sketch of the life of Hon. Wm. F. Cody,—“Buffalo Bill,”—a man known the world over as a border hero, of whom too much can not be said in the way of praise for valuable services rendered the Government as an army-scout, guide, and Indian-fighter.
Born in Iowa in 1843, at a time when that state was a border, and at an early age going with his father to Kansas, in the midst of the troubles there that “tried men’s souls,” William F. Cody was reared amid scenes of danger, and met with many thrilling adventures ere he reached his thirteenth year, becoming a “boy hero” when killing his first Indian before he entered his teens.
The death of his father, from the result of wounds received in the Kansas war, left the boy the support of his mother and sisters, and, precocious for his years, he joined an emigrant-train as teamster, and rapidly rose from that position to hunter and guide over the overland trails to the far West.
Of his numerous adventures, narrow escapes, Indian battles, and hardships volumes could be written—for he made his name famous along the border from Utah to Texas; and though a mere boy in years, few men were his superior in strength and endurance, while the cunning of the red-man he matched with equal cunning, and, in fact, won the name of being able to “out-Injun, Injun.”
Of Mr. Cody’s gaining the title of “Buffalo Bill” several stories are told, one of which is that when a boy-hunter to one of Russell, Major & Waddell’s trains, carrying Government supplies west to the forts, he was alone on the prairie one day, hunting, when he espied a tremendous herd of buffaloes coming toward him at full speed. The train-encampment was miles away, the boy was on foot, and there was but one chance to escape being trampled to death, and that was to reach a lone cotton-wood tree some distance off. A fleet runner, he gained the tree and drew himself up into the branches just as the herd of thousands of buffaloes came tearing along beneath him. Scarcely had he mentally congratulated himself upon his lucky escape when he espied behind the herd half a hundred Sioux warriors in full pursuit; and he knew that they would make short work of him, for they would also pass under the tree. To remain was certain death; and his fertile mind saw a chance,—one in a thousand,—and he seized upon it at once. He would drop down on the back of a huge buffalo-bull, and thus ride out of danger. This he did, landing astride of the back of an animal that, frightened fearfully, endeavored to throw him off, but in vain. Fortunately the herd headed in the direction of the train-encampment, and as the men ran out to secure fresh buffalo meat they saw that one of the bulls had a rider, and a crack shot bringing the animal down, it was found to be Bill Cody, who was then and there christened “Buffalo Bill.”
Another account is that when hunting for the hands on the Kansas Pacific Railroad he, in one season, killed four thousand two hundred and eighty buffaloes, and thereby won the title that he is known by the world over.
As a pony-express rider, when fifteen years of age, under the famous Alf. Slade, Buffalo Bill won a name as being a rider of marvelous skill and endurance, making, on one occasion, a continuous ride of three hundred and thirty-two miles, and accomplishing the whole distance in twenty-two hours,—truly a wonderful feat.