Buffalo Bill’s Boy Bugler
OR,
THE LAST OF THE INDIAN RING
BY
Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
Author of the celebrated “Buffalo Bill” stories published in the
Border Stories. For other titles see catalogue.
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
Copyright, 1909
By STREET & SMITH
Buffalo Bill’s Boy Bugler
(Printed in the United States of America)
All rights reserved, Including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
IN APPRECIATION OF WILLIAM F. CODY
(BUFFALO BILL).
It is now some generations since Josh Billings, NedBuntline, and Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, intimate friendsof Colonel William F. Cody, used to forgather in theoffice of Francis S. Smith, then proprietor of the NewYork Weekly. It was a dingy little office on Rose Street,New York, but the breath of the great outdoors stirredthere when these old-timers got together. As a result ofthese conversations, Colonel Ingraham and Ned Buntlinebegan to write of the adventures of Buffalo Billfor Street & Smith.
Colonel Cody was born in Scott County, Iowa, February26, 1846. Before he had reached his teens, hisfather, Isaac Cody, with his mother and two sisters,migrated to Kansas, which at that time was little morethan a wilderness.
When the elder Cody was killed shortly afterward inthe Kansas “Border War,” young Bill assumed the difficultrôle of family breadwinner. During 1860, and untilthe outbreak of the Civil War, Cody lived the arduouslife of a pony-express rider. Cody volunteered his servicesas government scout and guide and served throughoutthe Civil War with Generals McNeil and A. J.Smith. He was a distinguished member of the SeventhKansas Cavalry.
During the Civil War, while riding through the streetsof St. Louis, Cody rescued a frightened schoolgirl froma band of annoyers. In true romantic style, Cody andLouisa Federci, the girl, were married March 6, 1866.
In 1867 Cody was employed to furnish a specifiedamount of buffalo meat to the construction men at workon the Kansas Pacific Railroad. It was in this periodthat he received the sobriquet “Buffalo Bill.”
In 1868 and for four years thereafter Colonel Codyserved as scout and guide in campaigns against the Siouxand Cheyenne Indians. It was General Sheridan whoconferred on Cody the honor of chief of scouts of thecommand.
After completing a period of service in the Nebraskalegislature, Cody joined the Fifth Cavalry in 1876, andwas again appointed chief of scouts.
Colonel Cody’s fame had reached the East long before,and a great many New Yorkers went out to seehim and join in his buffalo hunts, including such menas August Belmont, James Gordon Bennett, AnsonStager, and J. G. Heckscher. In entertaining thesevisitors at Fort McPherson, Cody was accustomed toarrange wild-West exhibitions. In return his friendsinvited him to visit New York. It was upon seeing hisfirst play in the