“Major, I am really pleased with your trip, and I feel certain that those Indians on the Southern Agency will behave at least for a few months; but I have sent for you to learn what was the information you had regarding Buffalo Bill.”
“I have information that should hang him, sir,” the major asserted.
“You report that he has committed several murders. It is unbelievable. He may have killed men, in the discharge of his duty, but I shall be slow to think him a murderer.”
“He is a murderer, sir, high as he has stood. He shot two soldiers a year or two since, and what for Heaven only knows. He has shot down Indians by the score, and I believe he is in league with some of the hostile bands, also with the Branded Brotherhood.”
“Yet you know what a number of noble deeds he has performed.”
“They have had that appearance, general, but there has been some underhand reason for it, I assure you. Now, on my return from the southward, as I told you this morning, I passed by the new settlement of Riverside, to see if they longer needed the services of Captain la Clyde.
“There, all of a sudden Buffalo Bill appeared, after an absence of four weeks on some pretended trail, and demanded that I should let him have a dozen soldiers to accompany him upon some trip, which he pretended would rescue a young girl from captivity. I considered it some trap to lead my men into, and told him so, when he deliberately knocked me down. See, sir, here is the bruise on my left cheek.”
“He was most impertinent and daring, major, I must admit.”
“Yes, general; and I arose and rushed upon him with my sword, when, as quick as a flash, he wrested it from my grasp, broke it, and hurled me from him with a strength I believed no man capable of.”
“What did you do then, major?”