CHAPTER XXI.
FROM PRAIRIE TO PALACE.
In olden times, when a great leader of an “army with banners” was about to depart for a foreign country, bent on conquest, great was the outpouring of the people; loud sounded the drum and fife, and gay bunting flirted with the joyous breeze; salvos of artillery and great shouting rent the air, and songs were sung in honor of the mighty host decked in all the glittering panoply of war. All this in anticipation of the spoils of conquest to be brought back by the victor—human prisoners, coffers of gold, or blood-bought titles to war-won territory. How different in spirit, in action, and in expression was the assemblage that bade “God speed” to Gen. W. F. Cody on his departure as commander of the little heterogeneous army that sailed from Columbia’s shores. Yet no leader ever started on a mission possible of such rich achievement; none ever embarked upon a voyage destined to be so thoroughly and completely a tour of conquest and of glory. His project included neither the shedding of blood, the conquest of territory, nor the enslaving of prisoners. His was the mission of peace; the awakening of the Old World to the contemplation of fresh truths in the picturesque history of the New. Columbus had told old Spain of the savages that greeted him on his landing upon the shores of the New World; the Pilgrim Fathers had sent messages of their terrible struggles with their bitter Indian foes; but General Cody took with him great chieftains who called him friend. As evidences and traditions of the past, and for the delectation of peasant and prince “across the water,” they danced their war-dance and sounded their war-whoop. But to the thoughtful it must have been a grander sight to see them, in the hours not devoted to duty, grouped in friendly conclave around the man who, appearing first among them as a foe, they had learned at last to understand and appreciate as their friend indeed. What a lesson to power, what an exemplification of the true spirit that moved the founders of the great American Republic! No compulsion was used by this hero of the plains to enforce the attendance of these bronzed warriors on his journeys; but trusting to his word alone as the guerdon of their safety, they willingly, gladly, went into a far country among scenes and people strangely new to them.
THE PRAIRIE HOME OF BUFFALO BILL.
How appropriate that such an army, under such a leader, and on such a peaceful and glorious invasion, should carry into and plant in sturdy England, sunny France, historic Spain, mighty Germany, and poetic Italy the flag that proclaims to all the world that “all men are, and by right ought to be, free and equal.”
Before following the Wild West of America in a mimic display across the seas into foreign lands, it may be well to here consider something that this wonderful man among men has done in the way of educating our own and other people into knowing what the Indian really is.
Glancing now over the history of the Indians, we recall how cruel has been their mode of warfare, and massacres innumerable rise up before us, from the red scene in the Wyoming Valley to the death of the gallant Custer and his brave 300 boys in blue.
Yet, reared upon the frontier, amid scenes of courage, and learning from actual experience all the redskin could become as a foe, Buffalo Bill yet accorded to them the rights that others would not allow.
If fighting them, he yet would befriend them in time of need and was never merciless to them in defeat.
Winning fame as scout, guide, and Indian fighter, Buffalo Bill was seized upon as a hero for the pen of the novelist, and volumes have been written founded upon his deeds of daring.