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Notwithstanding his daily engagements and his punctual fulfillment of them, he found time to go everywhere, to see everything, and to be seen by all the world. All London con tributed to his triumph, and now the close of his show is selected as the occasion for promot ing a great international movement with Mr. Bright, Lord Granville, Lord Wolseley and Lord Lorne for its sponsors. Civilization itself consents to march onward in the train of "BUFFALO BILL." COLONEL CODY can acieve no greater triumph than this, even if he some day realizes the design attributed to him of running the Wild West Show within the classic precincts of the Colosseum at Rome.
This association of the cause of international arbitration with the furtunes of the American Wild West is not without its grotesque aspects. But it has a serious import, never theless. After all, the Americans and the English are one stock. Nothing that is American comes altogether amiss to an Englishman. We are apt to thing that American life is not picturesque. We have been shown one of its most picturesque aspects. it is true that "RED SHIRT" would be as unusual a phenomenon in Broadway as in Cheapside. But the Wild West for all that is racy of the American soil. We can easily imagine Wall Street for ourselves; we need to be shown the cow-boys of Colorado. Hence it is no paradox to say that COLONEL CODY has done his part in bringing America and England nearer together.
A GREAT PONY-EXPRESS RIDE.
While riding pony-express between Red Buttes and Three Crossings, seventy-six miles, CODY had a dangerous and lonely route, includ ing crossing of the North Platte River, one-half mile wide, often much swollen and trubulent. An average of fifteen miles an hour had to be made, including changes of horses. detours for safety, and time for meals.
On reaching Three Crossings, finding the ride on the next division, a route of eighty-siz miles, had been killed during the night before, he made the extra trips on time. This round trip of three hundred and twenty-four miles was made without a stop, except for meals and change of horses, one of the longest and best-ridden pony-express journeys ever made.- Buell's History of the Plains.
"MAJOR" BURKE'S APPEAL FOR A PEACEFUL SOLUTION OF THE INDIAN TROUBLE . From the Washington Post.
Perhaps one of the most eloquent and effective pleas for a peaceful solution of the Indian trouble was the that made by MAJOR JOHN M. BURKE, at the famous conference in the Ogallalla camp on the 17th of January, when negotiating for the Indians' surrender with Capt. Lee. The proceedings, as reported for the Department, gives Major Burke's remarks as follows:
"My friends, I came here on the invitation of many of my Ogallalla friends who know me. I am happy to sit down among you to-day, because it is so much quieter than for some weeks. I do not come here in behalf of the Government, or any society, but because I travel and live with the Indians, and they are my friends for many years. When I first heard of this trouble, GEN. CODY ('BUFFALO BILL.') sent me to do what I could for you. I have been here eight or nine weeks-- have listened, heard and seen a great deal. From the first I saw no necessity for this trouble. A great deal of it came from a misunderstanding and lack of confidence among the Indians as regards the intention of the Government. Our friend, Capt. Lee, does no carry arms, neither do I. While it looked like peace daily you were just like scared birds, ready to stampede at any time. I am going to Washington to see the great counsellors, and I want to be able to say that when I left all was peace, and that the Indians fully understood Gen. Miles' intention. I want you to plave every confidence to him. When the earth loses something God sends something else, and when God took you friend Gen. Crook he sent you Gen. Miles, who is now your benefactor. The foundation of all good in men is truth and honor. When a man has these foundation he has right, and can stand open handed and talk for his rights. He needs no gun, which is dangerous and causes
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[IMAGE.] "WHITE CLOUD." Ogallala Sioux, War Chief of the Sioux Nation, Fighting chief of the Ghose Dancers.
trouble. Your have thousands of friends in the East. Gen. Miles and Capt. Lee can reach those friends. I have this confidence: there will be no war on the part of Gen. Miles, if you give up your arms, because through military discipline he can control his men, as soldiers ahve no interest to shoot Indians. Tell your young men to be calm and have confidence in Gen. Miles, who will see you through. But you must discipline and control your young men. Let every man who talks mean what he says, and not talk to evade the question. I. to show you what confidence I have in Gen. Miles that he will not fire upon uou and your women and children when you are disarmed, I will promise to live in your camp until you have confidence that hte white chief will see no harm come to you. I am glad to hear tha tsome chiefs are going to Washington, and hope, instead of ten, twenty or twenty-five will go. I will be there to see you, and may go with you. I will do all i cna in my humble way for you. Let us all work for peave between teh white men and the red - not for a moment, a day, a year, but for ever, for eternity." -------------
BILL CODY - (BY an OLD COMRADE.) You bet I knew him, pardner, he ain't no circus fraud, He's Western born and Western bred, if he has been late abroad; I knew him in the days way back, beyond Missouri's flow. WHne the country round was nothing but a huge Wild Western Show. When the Injuns were as thick as fleas, and the man who ventured through The sand hills of Nebraska had to fight the hostile Sioux; These were hot times, I tell you; and we all remember still The days when Cody was a scout and all the men knew Bill.
I knew him first in Kansas in teh days of '68, When the Cheyennes and Arapahoes were wiping from the slate Old scores against the settlers, and when men who wore the blue. With shoulder-straps and way-up rank, were glad to be helped through By a bearer of dispatches, who knew each vale and hill, From Dakota down to Texas, and his other name was Bill.
I mind me, too, of '76, the time when Cody took His scouts upon the Rosebud ; along with General Crook When Custer's Seventh rode to their death for lack of some such aide. To tell them taht the sneaking Sioux knew hot to amuscade; I saw Bill's fight with "Yellow Hand," you bet it was a mill, He downed him well at thirty yards, and all the men cheered Bill.
They tell me that the women folk now take his word as laws, In them days laws were mighty scarce, and hardly passed with squaws. But many a hardy settler's wife and daughter used to rest More quietly because they knew of Cody's dauntless breast; Because they flet from Laramie way down to Old Fort Sill, Bill Cody was a trusted scout, and all their men knew Bill.
I haveen't seen him much of late, how does he bear his years? They say he's making ducats now from shows and not from "steers." He used to be a judge of "horns," when poured in a tin cup. And left the wine to tenderfeet, and men who felt "well up." Perhaps he cracks a bottle now, perhaps he's had his fill. Who cares, Bill Cody was a scout, and all the world knows Bill.
To see him in his trimmin's, he can't hardly loo the same. With laundered shirt and diamonds as if "he run a game;" He didn't wear biled linen thne, or flash up diamond rings, The royalties he dreamed of then were only pasteboard kings, But those who sat behind the queens were apt to get their fill. In the days when Cody was a scout, and all the men knew Bill.
Gridrion Club, WM. E. ANNIN Washington, D. C., Feb. 28, 1691. Lincoln (neb.) Journal.
MACAULAY'S NEW ZEALANDER. - THE LAST OF THE MONICANS. - THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO. From Manchester Courier, April, 1888.
An addition which has just been made to the United States National Museum at Washington affords important subsidiary evidence, if such were needed, of the unique interest attending the extraodrinary exhibition at Manchester illustrative of the Wild West. Natu-
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ralists have not too soon become alive to the remarkable fact that those shaggy monarchs of the prairie, the ponderous buffalo tribe, are well-nigh extinct. They have dwindles away before the exterminating tread of the hunter and the march of the pioneer of civilization. The prairie no longer shakes beneath the impetuous advance of the mighty herd, and even individual specimens are becoming scarce. The representatives of the Smithsonian Museum in America therefore sent out an expedition into the West in search of what buffaloes there might be remaining, in order that the country might preserve some memento of the millions of those animals which not many years ago roamed over the prairies. Twenty-five animals in all were captured, six of which have been arranged in a group for exhibition. One of the American papers describes this as the transference of a little bit of Montana--a small square patch from the wildest part of the Wild West--to the National Museum. The idea is one which is exactly applicable to COLONEL W. F. CODY's collection, which is approaching its last days of residence among us. Those scenes in which the primeval forest and the vast expanse of prairie are represented, with elk and bison careering about, cahsed by the hunter and the scout, is a transference from the Wils West which, as we now learn, should be even more interesting to the naturalist than it is to either the artistic or the historical student. We entertained, independently of any instruction that may be afforded. These scenes, moreover, are all the more interesting to the ethnological student because of the association with them of the red men who have been indigenous to the prairies and their surroundings. The occu pation of Uncas, like Othello's, is gone; palatial buildings and busy streets have succeeded to the wigwam and the hunting grounds, and the successor of Fenimore Cooper may find his representative Indians, not where the hunting knife and tomahawk are needed, but in the arena of mimic battle and adventure. The Indian is going out with the buffalo; mayhap we shall ere long see the last of his descendants, with the contemplative gaze of Macaulay's New Zealander, sitting before the group in the Smithsonian Museum, looking upon the last representative of the extinct buffalo, fixed in its prairie-like surroundings. These considera tions of facts which force themselves upon the imagination, distincly enhance the interest of those pictures from the Wild West presented with such force and realism by the ruling genius who, anent the puport of these reflections, is so appropriately named "BUFFALO BILL." In the course of a very short time these pictures will permanently vanish from English soil, as they are to be produced in America soon, and it may be expected that those in arrears in information respecting them, and who appreciate, as they deserve to be appreciated, their instructive features, will give to them a concentrated attention ere it is too late.
A POSITION DIFFICULT TO ATTAIN.-- A "PLAINS CELEBRITY."-- A TITLE IMPERISHABLE.
To gain great local and national fame as a "plains celebrity" in the days of old was not an easy task; rather one of the most competitive struggles that a young man could possibly engage in. The vast, comparatively unknown, even called Great American Desert of twenty-five and thirty years ago was peopled only by the descendants of the sturdy pioneers of the then Far West--Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, etc., born, raised, and used to hardships and danger--and attracted only the resolute, determined adventurers of the rest of the world, seeking an outlet for pent up natures, imbued with love of daring adventure. Hundreds of men achieved local, and great numbers national fame for the pos session of every manly quality that goes to make up the romantic hero of that once dark and bloody ground. When is brought to mind the work engaged in, the carving out of the advance paths for the more domestically inclined settler, the dangers and excitements of hunting and trapping of carrying dispatches, stage driving, freighting cargoes of immense value, guiding successfully the immense wagaon trains, gold hunting--it is easy to conceive what--class of sturdy, adventurous young spirits entered the arena to struggle in a daily, deadly, dangerous game to win the "bubble reputation." When such an army of the best human material battled for supremacy, individual distinction gained by the unwritten law of unprejudiced popular promotion possessed a value that made its acquirer a "plains celebrity," stamped indelibly with an honored title rarely possessed unless fairly, openly, and justly won- a prize so pure that its ownership, while envied, crowned the victor with the friendship, fol lowing the admiration of the contestants. Thus Boone, Crockett, Carson, Beal, Fremont, Cody, Bridger, Kinman, Hickok, Cosgrove, Comstock, Frank North, and others, will live in
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the romance, the poetry, and history of their each distinctive work forever. The same spirit and circumstances have furnished journalists innumerable, who in the West imbibed the sterling qualities they afterward used to such effect. Notably Henry M. Stanley, who (in 1866) saw the rising sun of the young empire that stretches to the Rockies; Gen. Greely, of Arctic fame (now of Signal Service), and the equally scientific explorer, Lieut. Schwatka, passed their early career in the same school, and often follow "the trail" led by "BUFFALO BILL"; Finnerty (of the "Chicago Times"); "Modoe" Fox and O'Kelly (of the "New York Herald"), 1876; while later on new blood among the scribbers was initiated to their baptism of fire by Harries (of "Washington Star"), McDonough ("New York World"), Bailey (of "Inter-Ocean"), brave young Kelley (of the "Lincoln Journal"), Cressy (of the "Omaha Bee"), Seymour ("Chicago Herald"), and Aleen (of the "New York Herald"), present in the battle, who were honored by three cheers from "Old White Top" Forsythe's gallant Seventh Cavalry, the day after the battle of "Wounded Knee," as they went charging over Wolf Creek to what came near being a crimson day, to the fight "down at the Mission."
THE ORIGIN OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN. A Legend--Respectfully dedicated to Lieut. F.H. HARDIE, 3d cavalry, U.S.A.
There is a legend 'mong the plumed race, which strange though it be, their origins does trace to days primeval, when the mighty plan, with touch most wonderful was crowned with man.
With air oracular it has been told, by chieftains, nature-wise so very old, who, solemn sworn, as were their fathers too, this wonderful tradition seal as true.
It was the season when the sighing breeze bestrewed the ground with Autumn painted leaves-- When nature robed herself in rich array, her vesture interwove with sad and gay.
The buffalo, the elk and fellow deer in quiet grazed, with naught to harm or fear, for yet unborn the stealthy hunter foe, unwrought the murd'rous flint and arched bow.
Sublimity and grandeur did pervade the sun-tipped mountain-top and forest shade, as silence, most profound, with thoughtful train, the Universe spell-bound with magic chain.
Let the Great Spirit gazed the scene upon and saw perfection in all things but one; there were the hills and dales, and seas and land, and landscapes everywhere supremely grand. And fish and fowl, and beast on mount and plain, but who t' enjoy and over all to reign.
So from the border of a brooklet's way, lo, the Great Spirit took a piece of clay. And with a touch and look both sad and sweet, did mould it into form most exquisite.
Then breathed He on this thing symmetrically formed. When lo, into life and being warmed, and in the presence of its Maker stood, a female beauty--type of womanhood.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Dodge's extract on page 10. This privileged position, and the nature of its services in the past, may be more fully appreciated when it is understood that it commanded, besides horses, subsistence and quarters, $10 per day ($3,650 per year), all expenses, and for special service, or "life and death" volunteer missions, special rewards of from $100 to $500 for carrying a single dispatch, and brought its holder the confidence of Commanding Generals, the fraternal friendship of the Commissioned Officers, the idolization of the ranks, and the universal respect and consideration of the hardy pioneers and settlers of the West. "Bill" Cody's children can point with pride to recorded services under the following officers of world-wide and national fame:
General Sherman " Miles " Crook " Carr " Auger " Bankhead " Fry " Crittenden " Merritt " Switzer " Tony Forsythe " Duncan " Rucker
General Smith " King " Van Vilet " Anson Mills " Reynolds " Harney " Greely " Sheridan " Terry " Emroy " Custer " Ord " Hancock
General Royall " Penrose " Brisbin " Sandy Forsythe " Palmer " Dudley " Gibbon " Canby " Blunt " Hayes " Guy Henry " Hazen And others.
The extracts on the following pages speak for themselves, and will form interesting reading as authenticated references.
FROM GEN. "PHIL" SHERIDAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
GENERAL SHERIDAN refers to his meeting "Buffalo Bill." "He undertakes a dangerous task," chapter xii, pp. 281-289, in his autobiogrophy, published in 1888. The world renowned cavalry commander maintained continuous friendly relations with his old scout, even to social correspondence, friendly assistance, and recognition in his present enterprise up to the year of his death. After relating his conception of the first winter campaign against Indians on the then uninhabitated and bleak plains, in the winter of 1868, he says, "The difficulties and hardships to be encountered had led several experienced officers of the army and some frontiersmen like old Jim Bridger, the famous scout and guide of earlier days, to discourage the project. Bridger even went so far as to come out from St. Louis to discourage the attempt. I decided to go in person, bent on showing the Indians that htey were not secure from punishment because of inclement weather - an ally on which they had hitherto relied with much assurance. We started, and the very firstnight a blizzard struckus and carried away our tents. The gale was so violent that htey could not be put up again; the rain and snow drenched us to the skin. Shivering from wet and cold I took refuge under a wagon, and therespent such a miserable night that, when morning came, the gloomy predictions of old man Bridger and others rose up before me with greatly increased force. The difficulties were not fully realized, the blinding snow mixed with sleet, the piercing wind, thermometer below zero - with green bushes only for fuel - occasioning intense suffering. Our numbers and companionship alone prevented us from being lost or perishing, a fate that stared in the face of the frontiersmen, guides and scouts on thei rsolitary missions.
"An important matter had been to secure competent guides for the different columns of troops, for, as I have said, the section of country to be operated in was comparatively unknown.
"In those days the railroad town of Hays City was filled with so-called 'Indian Scouts' whose common boast was of having slain scores of redskins, but the real scout - that is, a guide and trailer knowing the habits of the Indians - was very scarce, and it was hard to find anybody familiar with the country south of Arkansas, where the campaign was to be made. Still, about the various military posts there was some good material to select from, and we managed to employ several men, who, from their experience on the plains in various capacities, or from natural instinct and aptitude, soon became excellent guides and courageous and valuable scouts, some of them, indeed, gaining much distinction. Mr. William F. Cody ('Buffalo Bill'), whose renown has since become world-wide, was one of the men thus selected. He recieved his sobriquet from his marked success in killing buffaloes to supply fresh meat to the construction parties on the Kansas Pacific Railway. He had lived from boyhood on the