William F. Cody

Buffalo Bill

More widely known than any other, Cody's reputation was based not so much as a scout, as that of his experience as a Pony-Express Rider, and his famed Wild West Show. Aside from Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, perhaps no American name was more familiar to people throughout the world than was his.

Cody has been so much written about that little can be said of him that is new, for the story of his life is familiar to almost every one in the land. Not so many, however, were intimate with him, or could sit down with him to dinner, or to visit with him and talk with him over old west times. That was a privilege of the writer on many occasions.

And he was a delightful conversationalist and a perfect gentleman at all times and he had a high sense of humor as was illustrated once at the writer's home when Iron Tail was with him. He introduced the Chief to enact in pantomime, his winning of a game of poker he once played with army officers in a frontier camp in the old days. A card table was set before him and having adjusted himself at one side, he picked up, shuffled and dealt imaginary hands to three others and himself. He gathered up his cards and looking them over, placed his ante in the center of the table, waiting for the other players to place their coin in the pot - discarded, and began dealing again, - one card, two cards and three to others, and one to himself. Promptly, he shoved his bet into the "kitty" - and waited, his face expressionless as marble statuary. After time for others to stack their bets, he repeated the gesture once more, waited a moment for them to place their bets, then he swung his arm in circular motion, and swept the entire pile of imaginary gold into his blanket and rose from the table and strutted away. It was a superb piece of burlesque drama and excruciatingly funny. No one but an Indian could do it.

Like the other two war scouts, Captain Jack and Bob Strahorn, Cody would not discuss the Slim Butte affair - but did reveal in detail, his notorious pony express ride, to fill the section left riderless when killed by Indians. And he described his fight with Tall Bull, and his duel with Yellow Hand, - both of whom he killed at short range.

Only because of the red-tape army regulations and uncalled-for fear of an outbreak, Cody was prevented from settling the Ghost Dance being carried on by Sitting Bull. Instead of permitting him to go to his camp and bring Sitting Bull in to the agency and who could have adjusted all the difficulties readily, - the army ordered his "hand off" and sent the troops to arrest the Chief, - and succeeded, - not in quelling religious demonstrations then being conducted at Grand River, and which was of little or no consequence to the whites, - the military delegation's crude interference furnished an excuse to murder the great Sioux Chief. This was followed a few weeks later by the same bungling army massacring Big Foot's band of starving men, women and children at Wounded Knee in 1890, - last of the 300 year struggle of the Red race to defend their people and their country.

Cody was much interested i his ranch home at Cody, Wyoming, and liked to talk over his plans for making it a notable place, as it now is - but it did not turn out to his financial benefit as he then hoped and expected. However, the museum which he planned has been put in operation, and much of his personal belongings are there to be seen.

World War I affected adversely the former success of the Wild West Show and before his death in 1917, his fortune had been wiped out and he died a poor man.

In the days of his scouting, Cody fought the Sioux and killed some of them, but in afteryears he became one of their best friends. His war-days name was to the Indians "Long Hair" and Pa-has-ka. He was the sponsor and white witness to the ceremony of adoption of the writer as a chief and member of the Sioux tribe - thirty-four years ago - and addressed him by his Indian name Tchanta Tanka thereafter.

It was he who settled a long doubt in the writer's mind about a tale heard from an old frontiersman who said that he had once camped on a level prairie on dry ground, and at midnight went out in the moonlight for a stroll a few rods from his tent. What had been dry ground in the evening, was now ankle-deep with water, yet there had been no rain, nor a stream which could inundate the plot where his camp stood. Colonel Cody verified that story: he attributed the phenomenon to the moon's influence, - just as it is claimed to cause the ocean tides.

The writer's son-in-law, Rev. R.N. Stumpf of Braddock, PA, was born in sight of Cody's home at North Platte, Nebraska, where the father's family were neighbors and frequent visitors at Scout's Rest mansion of the Colonel there. Years later when visiting York. PA, then home of the Stumpfs, the Colonel led his big Wild West parade by the Stumpf home where he halted long enough to pay his respects to his former neighbors, and to put on a social stunt* as tribute to the boy who was sick and could not use the complimentary ticket to the big show.

One of the items in the Wigwam den is a photograph of a delegation of Indians numbering seventy of Sioux chiefs and warriors, who went to pay their respects to their old friend, at his tomb, high in the Rockies. Our old friend Chief Flying Hawk stands at the head under the Stars and Stripes, but the Chief and the rest of them have long since joined the great scout in the long sleep.