As Buffalo Bill was known to be the most successful hunter on the prairies, shortly after his capture of the herd of Indian ponies he received an offer from the Kansas Pacific Railroad Company to keep their workmen supplied with meat, and the terms allowed him were so generous that he felt he owed it to his family, for he had become the father of a lovely little daughter, Arta, born in Leavenworth, to accept the proposition, and did so.
The employees of the road numbered some twelve hundred, and Buffalo Bill's duty was to supply them with fresh meat, a most arduous task, and a dangerous one, for the Indians were constantly upon the war-path.
But he undertook the work, and it was but a very short while before his fame as a buffalo-killer equaled his reputation as an Indian-fighter, and often on a hunt for the shaggy brutes, he had to fight the red savages who constantly sought his life.
It was during his service for the Kansas Pacific that he was rechristened Buffalo Bill, and he certainly deserved the renewal of his name, as in one season he killed the enormous number of four thousand eight hundred and twenty buffaloes, a feat never before, or since equaled.
And during this time, in the perils he met with, and his numerous hair-breadth escapes, in conflict with red-skins, horse-thieves and desperadoes, it is estimated that over a score of human beings fell before his unerring rifle and revolvers, while, he still bearing a charmed life, received only a few slight wounds.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE CHAMPION.
Some time after his great feat of killing buffalo for the Kansas Pacific, Buffalo Bill was challenged by Billy Comstock, another famous buffalo-hunter, and a scout and Indian interpreter, to a match at killing the shaggy wild animals.
Those who knew Comstock and had seen him among a herd of buffalo, and had heard of Buffalo Bill's exploits, were most desirous of making a match between the two to discover which was the best "killer."