A single Indian comes flying across the field lashing his running pony, and draws up before his band.
Then, in order, come other tribes until a motley, bright-colored rank of mounted warriors are ranged all along the front of the field. Then French cavalry ride in with similar heralding, except that the color-bearer is announced separately and the band plays the Marseillaise. German lancers follow to the tune of “Die Wacht am Rhine,” and after them, Mexicans, American cowboys, British Lancers, and Cossacks perched on high saddles. The Indians are holding their shields above their heads to protect themselves from the rain. Now Arabs come, and two women riders; an old guide, gray-bearded and dressed in fringed buckskins; United States cavalrymen, riding upon gray horses; and at last, cheered even more than the Stars and Stripes, there gallops to the head of that great array an honorable gentleman, of whom Harry remarks: “That is Biffalo Bull himself—and a fine-looking man he is!”
At a signal from the scout the whole cavalcade springs into life and rapid motion. The plain is dotted with horsemen dressed in gay uniforms; and just then the sun breaks out to brighten the scene, and a rainbow is seen above the right-hand portion of the grounds as the riders follow one another out. It was certainly a brilliant and cheerful pageant.
A well-known markswoman runs over the liquid mud, making swimming motions with her arms, and taking up a gun breaks clay pigeons and glass balls as fast as they can be supplied by the attendants. Fancy shooting follows, and, making a miss, the woman walks around the table where the guns are resting. This whimsical performance makes the people laugh.
Several usual features follow. A race between riders of different nations; the “pony express,” an exhibition of rapid shifting from one horse to another; an emigrant-train attacked by Indians, but saved by the blank cartridges of the Hon. Mr. Cody and his rough-riding friends; and then come Syrians and Arabians in wonderful feats of balancing, juggling, and pyramid-grouping. In this last act one of the men supported nine others in the air—a weight of perhaps twelve hundred pounds.
“And yet,” Harry remarked, “some men find it hard to support a small family.”
Always interesting, the thick mud made the show funny as well. It was hard for men and horses to secure a foothold: Syrian acrobats stopped to wash their muddy hands in almost equally muddy water; some of the fierce horses were compelled to drop almost into a walk instead of running madly across the arena; when a marksman wished to lie down in order to shoot from that position, it required careful search to find firm ground for his blanket; the men who built themselves into pyramids bedaubed one another until their dresses were mud-color instead of crimson; and all through the long, delightful program the sticky mud took a prominent part in amusing the spectators.
When “Old John Nelson” rode up near where the boys sat, and delivered the mail from the old original Deadwood coach, he hurled it off with the regulation speech, “Here’s the Deadwood mail,” and then added, winking to Harry, “A little damp, too; but never mind!” The same genial old guide, who was lying lazily across the coach roof, raised himself coolly as the scouts cried, “Indians! Indians!” and again grinning at the boys, remarked in a low tone, “Going to be Indians, eh? Then I’ll get up!”
