A NOONDAY HALT ON THE PRAIRIE.
CHAPTER VII.
A MOST FAMOUS RIDE.
In the spring of 1868, at the outbreak of the violent Indian war, General Sheridan, from his headquarters at Hays City, dispatched Cody as guide and scout to Captain Parker at Fort Larned. Several bands of Comanches and Kiowas were in the vicinity, and Buffalo Bill, after guiding General Hazen and an escort of twenty men to Fort Sarah, thirty miles distant, started to return to Larned alone. At Pawnee Rock, about half-way, he found himself suddenly surrounded by about forty warriors. By professions of friendship and warm greeting of “How, how!” Bill saw he could alone depend on cunning and strategy to escape. Being taken before Santanta, who Bill knew was expecting, a short time before, a large herd of cattle which had been promised by General Hazen, he boldly complained to the wily chief of his treatment, and informed him that he had been ordered to find him and deliver “a big heap lot who-haws.” The cupidity of old Santanta enabled Bill to regain his arms. Although declining an escort, he was followed, much to his alarm, by a dozen well-mounted redskins. Keeping up “a heap of thinking,” Cody at last reached a depression that hid him from view, and succeeded, by putting the mule at his highest speed, in getting fully a mile in advance before the trailers discovered his object.
Upon seeing the fleeing scout, there were no further grounds for suspecting his motives; so the Indians, who were mounted on excellent ponies, dashed after him as though they were impelled by a promise of all the whisky and bacon in the big father’s commissary for his scalp. Bill was trying to save his hair, and the Indians were equally anxious to save it, so that the ride, prompted by these diametrically opposed motives, was as furious as Tam O’Shanter’s. After running over about three miles of ground, Bill turned his head, only to be horrified by the sight of his pursuers gaining rapidly on him. He now sank the spurs a little deeper into his mule, let out another inch of the reins, and succeeded in increasing the speed of his animal, which appeared to be sailing under a second wind.
It was thus the chase continued to Ash Grove, four miles from Fort Larned, at which point Bill was less than half a mile ahead of the Indians, who were trying to make line shots with him and his mule as a target. Reaching Pawnee Fork, he dashed into that stream, and as he gained the opposite shore, and was rounding a thick clump of trees, he was rejoiced to meet Denver Jim, a prominent scout, in company with a private soldier, driving a wagon toward the post.
A moment spent in explanation determined the three men upon an ambush. Accordingly the wagon was hastily driven into the woods, and posting themselves at an advantageous point they awaited the appearance of the red-skinned pursuers. “Look out!” said Bill; “here they come, right over my trail.” True enough, the twelve painted warriors rode swiftly around the clump of brush, and the next instant there was a discharge of shots from the ambush which sent two Indians sprawling on the ground, where they kicked out their miserable existence. The others saw the danger of their position, and making a big circle rode rapidly back toward their war-party.
When the three men reached Larned, Buffalo Bill and Denver Jim each displayed an Indian scalp as trophies of a successful ambush, and at the same time apprised Captain Parker of the hostile character of Santanta and his tribe.