The William F. Cody Archive: Documenting the life and times of Buffalo Bill

"BUFFALO BILL" IN ENGLAND.

America has had worse representatives in England than "Buffalo Bill." He is a handsome man, a brave man, a splendid shot, a perfect rider, and if any London toughs get him in a close place and press him too far, they will find that he is a fighter "from away back." If he keeps sober he will not disgrace his country, for he is shrewd enough to know his own defects and he conceals them splendidly by a retiring and courteous manner. If he happens to go on a spree we are not sure that he will disgrace his country even then, because he drinks as he rides and shoots, and he will give London such a shaking up as it has not had for a long time. Deep down "Buffalo Bill" is a brainy man, a born General. That he can keep such an organization as his under control is a proof of magnificent administrative ability, backed by a pluck that never falters. A couple of years ago a horse was procured that tossed off all his vaqueros and Indians, and they reported to him that he was too much of a terror for them all. Bill's answer was, "We came from the West advertising ourselves as masters of horses and guns; are we going to be thrown down by a country bred Quaker animal? Show me this horse." Thereupon Bill mounted him and kept his seat and conquered him, and the vaqueros and savages said he was chief. Three years ago by the sinking of a steamboat on the Mississippi, CODY lost a great number of his animals, including the mule team which served in his show to haul the stage which is attacked by Indians. In refitting he bought six wild mules for the coach. They were large animals, that had the obstinate jaws characteristic of the "impenitent mule." When ready for a performance to be given the next day, the driver went to him and said: "Mr. CODY, those mules are wilder than Comanches and savage as grizzlies. When the shooting commences they will take to the hills and you might as well try to stop a cyclone." "That means," said CODY, "that you don't want to drive them?" "There will be no drive about it," said the man. "It will be simply a ride while it lasts." "Very well," said CODY, "hitch up your cyclone and tell the Indians we will have a rehearsal." CODY had secured the fair grounds of some Eastern town for a place for his exhibition, and a race track was one of the features of the grounds. The mules were harnessed to the coach and held until CODY got on the box and secured the reins. He had ordered the Indians to commence firing when he started, and to keep it up as long as their ponies could keep in reasonable distance of the stage. Then he told the men who were holding the mules to fall back, and the race began. The mules ran around the track six times. CODY merely tried at first to keep them within the enclosure. When, after three miles the blown animals began to show signs of distress, CODY began whipping them, cracking his whip and yelling like an Apache. When the last three miles were completed the mules stopped at the word, just able to stand. CODY gave it, as his belief, that they were thoroughly broken, and "one of the sweetest driving teams" that he had ever tried to engineer, and the employees who watched the performance quietly passed the word from one to the other that the "old man is chief, sure enough." It is by such means that "Buffalo Bill" holds his motley band of cow-boys and Indians in subjection, and when they show symptoms of a quarrel among themselves, he goes direct to the one who is making the trouble and tells him in a soft voice, but with the old dangerous glitter in his eyes, that he always takes a hand when there is trouble in his camp, and that is enough. In other words, he is altogether a manly man, and this the men of England, from high to low, will discover before he has been among them very long.