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HON W. F. CODY-- ("BUFFALO BILL")

was born in Scott County, Iowa, whence his father, Isaac Cody, emigrated a few years afterward to the distant frontier territory of Kansas, settling near Fort Leavenworth. While still a boy his father was killed in what is now known as the "Border War," and his youth was passed amid all the excitements and turmoil incident to the strife and discord of that unsettled community, where the embers of political contenting smoldered until they burst into the burning flame of civil war. This state of affairs among the white occupants of the territory, and this ingrained ferocity and hostility to encroachment from the native savage, created an atmosphere of adventure well calculated to educate one of his natural temperament to a familiarity with danger, and self-reliance in the protective means for its avoidance.

From a child used to shooting and riding, he at an early age became a celebrated pony express rider, then the most dangerous occupaton on the plains. He was known as a boy to be most fearless and ready for any mission of danger and respected by such men then engaged in the express service as old Jule and the terrible Slade, whose correct finale is truthfully told in Mark Twain's "Roughing It." He accompanied General Albert Sidney Johnston on his Utah expedition, guided trains overland, hunted for a living, and gained his sobriquet by wresting the laurels as a buffalo hunter from all claimants--notably Comstock, in a contest with whom he killed sixty-nine buffaloes in one day to Comstock's forty-six--became scout and guide for more the now celebrated Fifth Cavalry (of which General E.A. Carr was Major), and is thoroughly identified with that regiment's Western history; was chosen by the Kansas Pacific Railroad to supply meat to the laborers while building the road in one season killing 4,862 buffaloes, besides deer and antelope; and was chief of scouts in the department that protected the building of the Union Pacific.

WHITE EAGLE. "GUIDING AND GUARDING."

In these various duties his encounters with the red men have been innumerable, and are well authenticated by army officers in every section of the country.