26
BUFFALO BILL PERFORMS A MARRIAGE.
Colonel the Hon. W.F. Cody ("Buffalo Bill") is narrating his experiences and adventures in the Globe. The adventures range between terrible single-handed combats with famous Indian chiefs and the numerous social and other difficulties incident to his life in the Far West. Colonel Cody says:-I had been elected a magistrate for the State of Nebraska, and was one evening astonished by the visit of one of the sergeants of the post who desired to be married. There was no clergyman in the country, and I, as the representative of the law, was therefore empowered to tie the loving couple together. There was one awkward point, however. I had never performed a civic marriage, or even assisted at one, and the statutes of Nebraska contained nothing in the way of form of directions. I therefore had perforce to rely on my ingenuity on this occasion, and fels somewhat confused. The time arrived, and with it the pair of lovers. I turned to them, and said to the bridegroom
"Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife, to support and love her through life?"
"I do," replied the man.
"And do you," I said to the bride, "take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?"
"I do," said the woman.
"Then join hands, and knoww that I pronounce you two to be man and wife, and whomsoever Buddalo Bill joins together let no mand put asunder."
It was not, perhaps, strictly forma, but it did well enough. The pair were married, and were contented, and I believe lived veru happy together ever after.
27
MORE ABOUT BUFFALO BILL'S RED SKINS.
AN AMBUSCADE AND SLAUGHTER OF TROOPS.
The Red Indians now at the American Exhibition have communicated many details of stirring events in their history which had before been imperfectly known. In a little book, entitled, "Red Shirt, Chief of the Sioux Nation," which is just about to be published, the capture of Fort Phil, Carney is thus vivdly described:p--
It was just when the United States officers were chating at their inability to reach their subtle foes that a baud of twenty Indians, headed by the Sioux Chief, Crazy Horses, rode up to the settlement at Fort Phil, Carney, mounted on splendid horses, maneuvered around the station, firing at and picking off any helpless resident who incautiously exposed a mark for the fatal bullet. The soldiers returned the fire, but the Indians, instead of retiring, drew closer to the fort, galloping around it, as is customary in Indian warfare, firing all the time. It was irritating and galling to the Commander to see a little force like this, not a quarter as strong as his own, openly defying him in the broad daylight, while the people in the fort grumbled at his inactivity. Goaded at last by the persistent attacks of his enemies, he opened his gates and sallies out to drive back the Indians.
LEADING THE TROOPS INTO A TRAP.
There were no signs of any other Red Men. The country for miles around was clear. Yet, though they saw the troops approaching, the Indians, contrary to their custom, retired but slowly, every now and then swooping back to fire a shot at their pursuing enemies. The Whites had already lost some of their best men. They were maddened at having been kept for weeks without a chance of getting at their foe, and they rode their horses at their hardest after the band of Indians, who were now flying from them, and keeping just without range. The road from the fort was a level one across the plain, but about six miles distant it passes between two shallow creeks. Beyond the creeks on either side were steep hills, wooded, and offering coplete shelter. In these woods Red Cloud had posted a strong force of his best fighting braves. On either end of the gorge strong parties of Indians lay concealed. It was Red Cloud who had sent the fiery Crazy Horse up to the fort to make feigned attacks, and draw the white garrison in pursuit, and his heart was gladdened at last by seeing the Indians galloping down the road, and the white men charging after them at the most furious pace. On they came, pursuers and pursued, at a break-neck gallop, the Indian ponies flagging, but bravely struggling on, and the white men gaming upon the little band of desperadoes.
A DETERMINED BAND.
Into the gorge they came, flushed with the hope of coming victory. But now a terrible change comes over the scene. From every rock and from behind every tree, in response to the shrill note of Red Cloud, rings out the wild Indian warcry from the warriors concealed at each end of the gorge across the road. On either sie of the hills the ambushed Indians on their agile ponies bear down in solid masses, leaping across the shallow creeks, and charging headlong through the startled soldiery. In that first rush the Red Men lost three of their braves, but many of the Whites bit the dust. The soldiers from the from had just been through the civil war. They were injured to campaigning; they had faced dangers without number; and they determined to show the Red Man how the white soldier could fight. Turning their horses loose, they jumped to the ground and formed square--some lying on their faces and rapidly loading and firing, others kneeling and dishcharging their rifles from that position; and all determined to do or die on te spot. Ten times the Indians charged down those hills upon that devoted little band, but never a white soldier stirred. No artifice of Red Cloud, clever as he was, could break the solid square; each and all recognised that their only chance of safety lay in fighting shoulder to shoulder.
COLD-BLOODED SLAUGHTER.
Foiled in their efforts to cause a stampede among the soldiers, the Indians altered their tactics, and kept up a persistent rifle fire until every man of that little group of heroes had fallen. Not one escaped; not one tried to escape. Then, with many a wild whoop, the savage Red Man fell upon his fallen foes, and the scalping knife and tomahawk finished what the rifle had begun. The arms and ammunition were the greatest prizes taken, and many of the tribes who had before fought with a simple bow and arrow, had now the trusty weapons of civilization in their hands.
THE FORT TAKEN
Leaving the field of battle the Red Men made all the haste back to Fort Phil, Carney. Here the fight was renewed; but the resistance was slight, and the Red Men carried the fort by assault, every White within its palisades being killed. The scalps of two hundred Whites adorned the Red Men's belts. It was a great victory for the Red Man; his spoils were enormous. The ammunition which he had been wanting was now plentiful, and the United States Government began to realise that it was no common foe whom they were fighting, and that the man at its head was one fitted to cope with the best Generals they had in their service.
28
THE KING OF THE COWBOYS.
The case of the celebrated cowboy, Buck Taylor, who met with an accident at Buffalo Bill's "Wild West" last week, is not without surgical interest. The peculiar character of the injury is explained by further particulars of the circumstances under which it was inflicted. He was engaged in a quadrille on horseback, and was passing between two horses when one of them, ridden by a "Western girl," swerved, and left little space for his horse to pass on. He attempted, however, to go forward, when the swerving horse swung itself with great force against his right thigh, and he felt the bone snap as he received the blow. Buck Taylor then tried to rest the injured limb along the back of the horse, but found at once that he had lost all control over the muscles of the thigh; so he threw his arm round the horse's neck, and looked out for the right moment to slip as comfortably as possible on the tan. Unfortunately, he could not control himself as he slid off, but fell on his back and sprained the muscles of his neck. A splint was improvised for the injured thigh without disturbing the patient's clothes, and at the West London Hospital a simple and perfectly transverse fracture of the right thigh-bone was discovered. The chief point of interest in the [case?] was the production of the fracture by direct force applied to the outer aspect of the thigh, not apparently high in degree, and without injury to the soft parts. Only a few similar cases have been recorded. Buck Taylor is quite the hero of the hour, and receives daily a large number of visitors, including many persons of high social position and culture.
29
THE Argonaut, published in San Francisco, in its edition of the 7th of May, has some observations evoked by the account given in American newspapers of Mr. GLADSTONE'S visit to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. It regards the "capture" of three such eminent persons as an ex-Premier of England, leader of the Irish rebellion, his wife, and the husband of one of Her Majesty's daughters as a proof that Buffalo Bill is as successful a showman as is Gladstone a Parliamentary hand. "Nothing could be more neat than the introduction of 'Red Shirt' as a 'type of the American citizen.'" After reminding Mr. GLADSTONE of his former sympathy with the slave-owners' rebellion, when the Confederate States were engaged in war for the preservation of human slavery. the same paper remarks that it is "no thanks to Mr. GLADSTONE for the magnitude of America's destiny; no thanks to him that our Union was not divided, and that the earth today is not cursed with an institution holding in bondage 10,000,000 of souls as white as his own. Mr. GLADSTONE is charged sometimes with political inconsistency. His course to-day in aiding the treasonable Irish to divide the British Empire is in moral harmony with his endeavour to aid a treasonable South to divide and destroy our Republican Union. We hope he fully explained this to Buffalo Bill, and that, through his interpreter, he made plain to 'Red Shirt' his patriotism to England and his devotion to the human family in these the two most important efforts of his life. The article concludes:
"Perhaps, however, we have no right of reasonable complaint, for if the English people are willing to take Buffalo Bill and a dilapidated old Indian wrapped in a red woollen blanket as representatives of American citizenship, we shall be compelled to accept this Pecksniffian hen-talk as a specimen of parliamentary eloquence, and Mr. GLADSTONE himself as a fair sample of the strong-minded, robust, patriotic John Bull."
30
TUESDAY (6). -- The visitors to Buffalo Bill's Wild West show in the evening were treated to an unrehearsed incident. About six o'clock a large boiler full of fat was boiling on the stove in the cowboys' kitchen, when suddenly the vessel tilted, and the building, which was a timber one, was in flames. For a few minutes the vast number of people present considered the fire a portion of the programme; but they were, however, undeceived when they saw the energy with which Buffalo Bill's firemen attached hose to the private hydrants, and attacked the flames. The flames were not extinguished before severe damage had been done to the building. -- A serious fire broke out at the auction rooms, 10. Stoke Newington-road, at 12,55 a.m. The back building of two floors, used for storing, was gutted, and a similar front building was much damaged. -- Small fires occurred at 45, Nicholas-street, Globe-road, Mile-end-road; at Messrs. Westhorp and Co.'s works. Ellesmere-street, Poplar; at 69, Harmwood-street, Kentish-town: and at 54, Stanhope-street, Clare-m'rket.