A COW-BOY.
This by-play delighted the boys; but best of all was “Custer’s Last Charge.”
First came the Indians, and encamped far away across the plain. A scout followed; discovered them with plenty of gestures to let the audience into the secret; reconnoitered them over the imitation rock; rode off to tell “Custer” and his staff—mainly buglers—of the great find; brought back the general, who gazed meaningly at the red villains through a warlike night-glass, and then all the white men retired for reinforcements.
Coming back, the cavalrymen charged fiercely on the Indians, fired off several dollars’ worth of gunpowder, and disappeared behind a curtain. Mournful music indicated the terrible fate of the cavalrymen.
During the whole afternoon the boys sat beside a boy from Chicago who told them many particulars about the show and the riders. He said he had seen the performance four or five times, but seemed nevertheless to enjoy it. Harry learned that the young Chicagoan sometimes came to New York city, and gave the boy his address, inviting him to call.
It began to rain again as they went home, but it was only a short distance to the hotel, and they went straight to that goal in spite of a most pressing invitation to “Take supper here now for twenty-five cents, and go home by the light of the moon!”
Harry was rather silent on the way home, but showed the course of his thoughts by remarking: “I think perhaps I will give up being anything too civilized; I’m going to ask my father to buy me a ranch far out West.”
“I wonder,” said Mr. Douglass, “whether the young Indians who come to the Fair with the Indian schools ever go to see the Wild West Show?”
A CHICAGO STREET.