“I’m fit to start back this minute, Major Clendenning. It will be a favor if you detail the men who are to go with me, and have them get ready instantly. I should like to have you order an extra horse for me, and while preparations are being made I’ll eat a bite, and then go right back.”
Clendenning, amazed at the scout’s orders, proceeded, however, to carry them out.
Twenty picked men were soon saddling horses, looking to their rifles, packing rations, and getting ready for a hard and swift ride to the Sepulcher Mountains.
Buffalo Bill swallowed some food hastily, ordered his saddle pouches to be filled with more; and then dropped down on a lounge in the major’s headquarters for a few winks of sleep. He had hardly stretched himself on the lounge before he was sleeping soundly.
He slept less than half an hour, during which time the preparations for his departure were being hurried; then he awoke, seemingly much refreshed and ready for any task.
It was this astonishing ability to fall asleep anywhere and at any time, and to awake after a brief slumber apparently as refreshed as if he had slept through a whole night, that in part made Buffalo Bill the wonder he was on a border trail.
He now brushed his clothing, ate more food, and then issued from the major’s headquarters.
“Men,” he said, speaking to the troopers who greeted him, and who were about ready to follow him, “we’ll have a hard night’s work of it, and a part of to-morrow may be consumed if the outlaws have changed their location; but I know you, each of you—men of the gallant old Seventh Cavalry!—and I thank you in advance for the success I know you will achieve. If Nick Nomad has been killed by Snaky Pete’s desperadoes, then desperado blood will flow before we see this fort again.”
They cheered him to the echo. Not a man there but felt proud to follow this gallant scout, whose reputation was so closely linked with that of the famous Seventh Cavalry.
Members of that noted regiment had died with Custer on the battlefield of the Little Bighorn, when a handful of men were overwhelmed and swept out of existence by a horde of Indian braves, the flower of the Sioux nation. On almost every battlefield of the West in which Uncle Sam’s troopers were hurled against Indians or outlaws, the gallant Seventh had had representatives.