CHAPTER XIX.
BUFFALO BILL’S “PARDS” OF THE PLAINS.
To gain great local and national fame as a plains celebrity in the days of old was not an easy task; rather one of the most competitive struggles that a young man could possibly engage in. The vast, comparatively unknown, even called great, American Desert of twenty-five and thirty years ago was peopled only by the descendants of the sturdy pioneers of the then far West—Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, etc.—born, raised, and used to hardships and danger; and attracted only the resolute, determined adventurers of the rest of the world, seeking an outlet for pent-up natures imbued with love of daring adventure. Hundreds of men achieved local, and great numbers national, fame for the possession of every manly quality that goes to make up the romantic hero of that once dark and bloody ground. When it is brought to mind the work engaged in—the carving out of the advance paths for the more domestically inclined settler; of the dangers and excitements of hunting and trapping; of carrying dispatches, stage-driving, freighting cargoes of immense value, guiding successfully the immense wagon-trains, gold-hunting—it is easy to conceive what a class of sturdy, adventurous young spirits entered the arena to struggle in a daily deadly, dangerous game to win the “bubble reputation.” When such an army of the best human material battled for supremacy, individual distinction gained by the unwritten law of unprejudiced popular promotion possessed a value that made its acquirer a “plains celebrity,” stamped indelibly with an honored title rarely possessed unless fairly, openly, and justly won—a prize so pure that its ownership, while envied, crowned the victor with the friendship, following, and admiration of the contestants. Thus Boone, Crocket, Carson, Beal, Fremont, Cody, Bridger, Kinman, Hickok, Cosgrove, Comstock, Frank North, and others will live in the romance, the poetry, and history of their distinctive work forever. The same spirit and circumstances have furnished journalists innumerable, who in the West imbibed the sterling qualities they afterward used to such effect—notably, Henry M. Stanley, who (in 1866) saw the rising sun of the young empire that stretches to the Rockies; General Greely, of Arctic fame, and the equally scientific explorer, Lieutenant Schwatka, passed their early career in the same school, and often followed the trail, led by Buffalo Bill; Finerty (formerly of the Chicago Times); “Modoc” Fox and O’Kelly (of the New York Herald), 1876; while of late years the scribblers were initiated to their baptism of fire by Harries (of Washington Star), McDonough (New York World), Bailey (of Inter Ocean), brave young Kelly (of the Lincoln Journal), Cressy (of the Omaha Bee), Charlie Seymour (Chicago Herald), Allen (of the New York Herald), Robert J. Boylan (of Inter Ocean), present in the battle, who were honored by three cheers from “Old White Top” Forsyth’s gallant Seventh Cavalry, the day after the battle of “Wounded Knee,” as they went charging over Wolf Creek—to what came near being a crimson day—to the fight “down at the mission.” That there are still “successors to every king” is assured by the manly scouts so prominent in the last Indian war in such men as Frank Gruard, now the most celebrated of the present employed army scouts; of “Little Bat,” true as steel and active as the cougar; Philip Wells, Louis Shangrau, “Big Baptiste,” and John Shangrau; while the friendly Indians furnish such grand material for any future necessity as No Neck, Major Sword, Red Shirt, and Yankton Charley.
“WILD BILL” (J. B. HICKOK).
It is a noticeable coincidence that nearly all of the famous frontier characters are natives of the West, and J. B. Hickok, better known as Wild Bill, was not an exception to the rule.
WILD BILL.
Born in La Salle County, Illinois, in 1837, his earliest desire was for horses and firearms. At the age of fourteen he had become known as a wolf-killer, for at that time the country where he lived was overrun by them.
Acquiring a rudimental education he started out to earn his living, and began as a tow-path driver on the Illinois & Michigan Canal.
Longing for fields of adventure he went into Kansas, where he soon made a name in the border war then going on there.