When Cody is not acting or riding or fighting Indians or ranching or asleep he is likely to be telling stories, and he has so many that it is hard for him to tell any story twice, unless by special request. One that has been frequently called for is of an Eastern man who was employed by Colonel Cody out West. The man had not been out long enough to know the illusive tricks of the clear atmosphere of the plains and hills. A picturesque mountain, that seemed only a mile away, interested him so greatly that he started early one morning to visit it and return by breakfast time. He didn’t return for three days. A few days later the colonel saw him beside an irrigating ditch, and asked him what he was going to do, for the man was taking off his clothes.
“I’m goin’ to swim across this river,” was the reply.
“Swim? Why don’t you jump it? It’s only three feet wide.”
“Ye-es; I know it looks that way, but I ain’t goin’ to be fooled again.”
One evening, at the Hoffman House, he told this story to two or three friends with whom he was spending the evenings while he was General Sheridan’s chief of scouts. There was “a little affair” in camp at which every one present got drunk but Cody; he had determined to keep sober, and succeeded. Toward morning he went to the cottage where he lived, rapped on the window, and made himself known, and his wife, who refused to open the door, said:
“Go away, whoever you are. Colonel Cody isn’t home yet.” At this point of the story Cody laughed and continued:
“Boys, I’d gone home sober, and my wife didn’t know me! I went back to the camp, got as full as any one else, returned to my house, approached the door unsteadily, fumbled the latch, and my wife’s voice greeted me, saying:
“‘Is that you, Willie?’”
When this story ended, we started from the Hoffman House for the Lambs’ Club, which was then in Twenty-sixth Street. With Cody and me were Steele Mackaye and Judge Gildersleeve, both of whom were tall, strong men. As we neared the club we met a crowd of very tough-looking men, and stood aside to let them pass, which they did, to my great relief. Then my companions got the laugh on me, for I remarked with earnest confidence:
“I’d like to see any four men get away with us!”