Buffalo Bill, the Border King; Or, Redskin and Cowboy

by Prentiss Ingraham

The sun was sinking like a great globe of fire, seemingly at the very foot of the broad valley which, from its head, spread forth miles upon square miles of verdant lawn, crimson and yellow groves, the leaves of which blushed before the cold finger-touch of winter interspersed with patches of hemlock and spruce, now, as ever, green. Through the valley flowed a broad river, joined here by several mountain brooks which tumbled down from the heights on either hand to swell the main current, which entered the vale from the mouth of the broad cañon on the north. A deeply rutted wagon trail came out of the cañon as well as the river. For miles this trace wound along the riverside, hemmed in by gigantic cliffs on the tops of which the bighorn sheep looked like specks to the traveler below, and which were so high and so close together in places that it was twilight at noon in the bottom of the gorge!

Indeed, back in the cañon it was already night when the sun was but setting out here in the valley. Therefore the “mule-skinners” cracked their blacksnakes and shouted many objurgations to their patient animals, desiring to reach the open and make camp outside the cañon before darkness finally settled upon the valley. The creaking of the wagon wheels and the cracking of the whips, with the voices of the mule-skinners, made music a mile up the cañon.

It was a heavy wagon-train. First rode the captain on a gray mare with a bell on her neck. With her tethered near the wagons the mules could be turned loose at night; they would never desert the camp as long as the gray mare remained faithful.

The wagons of the train were linked together—five or six great, lumbering, canvas-topped vehicles, with eight or ten span of mules hauling on each section. There were three of these sections in the train, six men to a section, the captain, and the cook who rode behind on another saddle-horse, leading a pack-animal which bore the cook-tent and some of the camp equipment.

When the captain reached the mouth of the cañon and beheld the pleasant, sunlit valley he turned and uttered a loud “coee! coee!” which brought the cook and his packhorse trotting forward. The valley looked perfectly safe to the captain of the train, and he selected an indenture in the river-bank where the cook and he set up the tent, and, as fast as the wagons came up, they deployed off the trail so as to make a horseshoe figure around the camping-place, the open part of which was toward the river.

This precaution was always taken whether they saw Indian signs or not. And at night rifles were issued to the men and a strong guard mounted. Each man “packed” a couple of guns at his waist all day, anyway.

The selection of this low piece of ground as the camp was not wise, however. An enemy could ride to the edge of the low, sloping bluff which surrounded it on three sides and pop bullets over the wagon tops into the enclosure, shooting from one side those who strove to guard the other line of the camp.

For days, however, the party had seen no signs of redskins. Small scalping-parties would fight shy of the wagon-train; for twenty well-armed whites were bound to be respected by the Arabs of the plains, especially as the train crew was sure to be armed with the quickfiring guns which the Indians so feared.

After the sun set the evening was short, for it was late fall now. The air grew chill; in the midst of the camp the men built a rousing fire, aside from that over which the cook pottered, and around this they gathered and told stories, cracked rude jokes, or basked silently in the warmth of the flames, resting from the toil of the day. So unconscious were they of aught but their immediate surroundings that they did not see several horsemen who topped the nearest rise to the west, and overlooking the camp.

It was now deep dusk, but the horsemen were silhouetted against the sky-line so plainly that had any of the freighters chanced to glance that way they must have seen the figures. Only for a moment were they in view, however. The leader of the group spoke sharply, but in a low tone, to his mates, and all pulled their horses about and disappeared quickly beyond the ridge.