31: The Last of the Great Scouts
<< 30: Cody Day at the Omaha Exposition || Genealogy of Buffalo Bill
THE story of frontier days is a tale that is told.
The "Wild West" has vanished like mist in the sun before
the touch of the two great magicians of the nineteenth century—
steam and electricity.
The route of the old historic Santa Fe trail is nearly followed by
the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which was completed in 1880.
The silence of the prairie was once broken by the wild war-whoop of the Indian
as he struggled to maintain his supremacy over some adjoining tribe;
the muffled roar caused by the heavy hoof-beats of thousands of
buffaloes was almost the only other sound that broke the stillness.
To-day the shriek of the engine, the clang of the bell, and the clatter
of the car-wheels form a ceaseless accompaniment to the cheerful hum
of busy life which everywhere pervades the wilderness of thirty years ago.
Almost the only memorials of the struggles and privations of the hardy
trappers and explorers, whose daring courage made the achievements
of the present possible, are the historic landmarks which bear the names
of some of these brave men. But these are very few in number.
Pike's Peak lifts its snowy head to heaven in silent commemoration of
the early traveler whose name it bears. Simpson's Rest, a lofty obelisk,
commemorates the mountaineer whose life was for the most part passed
upon its rugged slopes, and whose last request was that he should
{illust. caption = {signature of} W. F. Cody} be buried on its summit.
Another cloud-capped mountain-height bears the name of Fisher's Peak,
and thereby hangs a tale.
Captain Fisher commanded a battery in the army engaged in the conquest
of New Mexico. His command encamped near the base of the mountain which
now bears his name. Deceived by the illusive effect of the atmosphere,
he started out for a morning stroll to the supposed near-by elevation,
announcing that he would return in time for breakfast. The day passed
with no sign of Captain Fisher, and night lengthened into a new day.
When the second day passed without his return, his command was
forced to believe that he had fallen a prey to lurking Indians,
and the soldiers were sadly taking their seats for their evening
meal when the haggard and wearied captain put in an appearance.
His morning stroll had occupied two days and a night; but he set
out to visit the mountain, and he did it.
The transcontinental line which supplanted the Old Salt Lake
trail, and is now known as the Union Pacific Railroad,
antedated the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe by eleven years.
The story of the difficulties encountered, and the obstacles
overcome in the building of this road, furnishes greater marvels
than any narrated in the Arabian Nights' Tales.
This railroad superseded the Pony Express line, the reeking,
panting horses of which used their utmost endeavor and carried
their tireless riders fifteen miles an hour, covering their
circuit in eight days' time at their swiftest rate of speed.
The iron horse gives a sniff of disdain, and easily traverses
the same distance, from the Missouri line to the Pacific Coast,
in three days.
Travelers who step aboard the swiftly moving, luxurious cars
of to-day give little thought to their predecessors; for the
dangers the early voyagers encountered they have no sympathy.
The traveler in the stagecoach was beset by perils without
from the Indians and the outlaws; he faced the equally
unpleasant companionship of fatigue and discomfort within.
The jolting, swinging coach bounced and jounced the unhappy
passengers as the reckless driver lashed the flying horses.
Away they galloped over mountains and through ravines,
with no cessation of speed. Even the shipper pays the low rate
of transportation asked to-day with reluctance, and forgets
the great debt he owes this adjunct of our civilization.
But great as are the practical benefits derived from the railways, we cannot
repress a sigh as we meditate on the picturesque phases of the vanished era.
Gone are the bullwhackers and the prairie-schooners! Gone are the
stagecoaches and their drivers! Gone are the Pony Express riders!
Gone are the trappers, the hardy pioneers, the explorers, and the scouts!
Gone is the prairie monarch, the shaggy, unkempt buffalo!
In 1869, only thirty years ago, the train on the Kansas Pacific-road
was delayed eight hours in consequence of the passage of an
enormous herd of buffaloes over the track in front of it.
But the easy mode of travel introduced by the railroad brought
hundreds of sportsmen to the plains, who wantonly killed this
noble animal solely for sport, and thousands of buffaloes were
sacrificed for their skins, for which there was a widespread demand.
From 1868 to 1881, in Kansas alone, there was paid out
$2,500,000 for the bones of this animal, which were gathered up
on the prairie and used in the carbon works of the country.
This represents a total death-rate of 31,000,000 buffaloes
in one state. As far as I am able to ascertain, there remains
at this writing only one herd, of less than twenty animals,
out of all the countless thousands that roamed the prairie so short
a time ago, and this herd is carefully preserved in a private park.
There may be a few isolated specimens in menageries and shows,
but this wholesale slaughter has resulted in the practical
extermination of the species.
As with the animal native to our prairies, so has it been with the race
native to our land. We may deplore the wrongs of the Indian, and sympathize
with his efforts to wrest justice from his so-called protectors.
We may admire his poetic nature, as evidenced in the myths and
legends of the race. We may be impressed by the stately dignity
and innate ability as orator and statesman which he displays.
We may preserve the different articles of his picturesque garb as relics.
But the old, old drama of history is repeating itself before the eyes of
this generation; the inferior must give way to the superior civilization.
The poetic, picturesque, primitive red man must inevitably succumb
before the all-conquering tread of his pitiless, practical,
progressive white brother.
Cooper has immortalized for us the extinction of a people in
the "Last of the Mohicans." Many another tribe has passed away,
unhonored and unsung. Westward the "Star of Empire" takes its way;
the great domain west of the Mississippi is now peopled by
the white race, while the Indians are shut up in reservations.
Their doom is sealed; their sun is set. "Kismet" has been spoken
of them; the total extinction of the race is only a question of time.
In the words of Rudyard Kipling:
"Take up the White Man's burden—
Ye dare not stoop to less—
Nor call too loud on freedom
To cloke your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you."
Of this past epoch of our national life there remains
but one well-known representative. That one is my brother.
He occupies a unique place in the portrait gallery of famous
Americans to-day. It is not alone his commanding personality,
nor the success he has achieved along various lines, which gives
him the strong hold he has on the hearts of the American people,
or the absorbing interest he possesses in the eyes of foreigners.
The fact that in his own person he condenses a period
of national history is a large factor in the fascination
he exercises over others. He may fitly be named the "Last
of the Great Scouts." He has had great predecessors.
The mantle of Kit Carson has fallen upon his shoulders, and he wears
it worthily. He has not, and never can have, a successor.
He is the vanishing-point between the rugged wilderness of the past
in Western life and the vast achievement in the present.
When the "Wild West" disbands, the last vestige of our frontier life passes
from the scene of active realities, and becomes a matter of history.
"Life is real, life is earnest," sings the poet, and real and earnest it
has been for my brother. It has been spent in others' service. I cannot
recall a time when he has not thus been laden with heavy burdens.
Yet for himself he has won a reputation, national and international.
A naval officer visiting in China relates that as he stepped ashore
he was offered two books for purchase—one the Bible, the other a "Life
of Buffalo Bill."
For nearly half a century, which comprises his childhood,
youth, and manhood, my brother has been before the public.
He can scarcely be said to have had a childhood, so early was
he thrust among the rough scenes of frontier life, therein to play
a man's part at an age when most boys think of nothing more
than marbles and tops. He enlisted in the Union army before
he was of age, and did his share in upholding the flag during
the Civil War as ably as many a veteran of forty, and since then
he has remained, for the most part, in his country's service,
always ready to go to the front in any time of danger.
He has achieved distinction in many and various ways.
He is president of the largest irrigation enterprise in the world,
president of a colonization company, of a town-site company,
and of two transportation companies. He is the foremost scout
and champion buffalo-hunter of America, one of the crack
shots of the world, and its greatest popular entertainer.
He is broad-minded and progressive in his views, inheriting from
both father and mother a hatred of oppression in any form.
Taking his mother as a standard, he believes the franchise is
a birthright which should appertain to intelligence and education,
rather than to sex. It is his public career that lends an
interest to his private life, in which he has been a devoted
and faithful son and brother, a kind and considerate husband,
a loving and generous father. "Only the names of them
that are upright, brave, and true can be honorably known,"
were the mother's dying words; and honorably known has his
name become, in his own country and across the sea.
With the fondest expectation he looks forward to the hour when he shall
make his final bow to the public and retire to private life.
It is his long-cherished desire to devote his remaining years to the
development of the Big Horn Basin, in Wyoming. He has visited every country
in Europe, and has looked upon the most beautiful of Old World scenes.
He is familiar with all the most splendid regions of his own land,
but to him this new El Dorado of the West is the fairest spot on earth.
He has already invested thousands of dollars and given much thought
and attention toward the accomplishment of his pet scheme.
An irrigating ditch costing nearly a million dollars now
waters this fertile region, and various other improvements
are under way, to prepare a land flowing with milk and honey
for the reception of thousands of homeless wanderers.
Like the children of Israel, these would never reach the promised
land but for the untiring efforts of a Moses to go on before;
but unlike the ancient guide and scout of sacred history,
my brother has been privileged to penetrate the remotest
corner of this primitive land of Canaan. The log cabin he has
erected there is not unlike the one of our childhood days.
Here he finds his haven of rest, his health-resort, to which he hastens
when the show season is over and he is free again for a space.
He finds refreshment in the healthful, invigorating atmosphere
of his chosen retreat; he enjoys sweet solace from the cares
of life under the influence of its magnificent scenery.
And here, in the shadow of the Rockies, yet in the very "light of things,"
it is his wish to finish his days as he began them, in opening up for
those who come after him the great regions of the still undeveloped West,
and in poring over the lesson learned as a boy on the plains:
"That nature never did betray
The heart that loved her."
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