Chicago NEWS JUNE . 26. #
AMY LESLE AT THE FAIR.
Finds a Mine of Good Stories in the
Hospital Tent of Buffalo Bill.
-----------------
SOME HORSE-RACES OUT ON THE PLAINS.
----------------------
Col. Cody's First Engagment with a
Swallow-Tail Coal--Col. Ochil-
tree Remembered.
[ By Special Private Wire from the Daily News
World's Fair Bureau.]
In the shadiest corner of Buffalo Bill's camp there stands a mainiature cottage, thatched and green with culitvated iveys. It is the private kitchen of the scout and the welcome there is not confined to the Indian woven rug at the door but sparkles in the snowy linen, through glasses and from the rude pictures upon the boarded walls ; moreovere, it echoes in the hearty voice of Cody and in his wife's pleasant smile.
From the gate to the door is a rough brick walk, bordered with garden flowers that speak homely hospitality sweeter than words even day. Rows of naturtiums, phlox, primoroses [dr?] Charlie" line the walk and reaching to the high board fence. Col. Cody just escapes stooping to enter this tempting domain and John Burke scrapes his curly Irish head against the flags inside decorarting the low roof. Early last eventide Nate Salsbury, his pretty blonde wife, Mrs. Cody, tired little Irma, the baby of the Cody family : Artea Cody, Boals, the other daughter ; Pony Bob, John Burke and Buffalo Bill unlted in an invitation to entertain me in this ideal little heven. Not that any amalgamated coax-ing is necessary, for I am the first to follow through the gate after Cody and the last to leave the enchanting quiet and happiness when the hour for performance has arrived.
Cody never mises an appearance in each of his special offerings in the illustation of wild western life ; he does not practice gurning but does not shirk rehearslas nor indulge in the usual understudy privilege of a star. He just works the same day and night the year around and recreates by the simplest domestic enjoy-ment or a friendly rest in the company of chosen friends. A perfect bombardment of recollection experinces and escapdes fill out the hours in company like this Salsbury is a cynic, full of the bitterness of caustic humor and spice of sarcasm. Mrs. Salsburry is spirit-nelle and cultuned, with graces attuned to so-clearly and wit effevacsent and elegant. No such an enaging story-teller as Buffalo Bill figures in history or romance. He is queit, rich in humor and mellow his style as a bottle of old port. Nobody on earth has had quite such a gold mine of experience to draw from and no a dozen men I know have his splendid maguestim, keen appreciation and happy originality. He sticks to truth mainly and is more intensely beguiling than the veriest maker of fiction. Maj-Burke, worthy his Hibernnian descent, has a perfect volume of episodes in a repertory which changes with the weather, Mrs. Cody is bright as a dollar and Artea, who is handsome as her father and clever as her mother, is jewel in a congenial crowd of idlers bent upon amusing each other by heedless and cheerful banter or capital recitals.
With that sort of delightful people together conversation drifts into descriptive channels and stories are beaded along like strains of rubies, interrupted once in a while by a delicate pearl of sentiment. There is never any begin-ing to an evening of laughs or tears made up of yarns. But likely something reminded Salsbury of the old days of " The Brook," for, without waring, we were in the midst of a scene described by that arch comedian in his most solemn and grotesque fashion: " Charlotte Cushman had just died and the stage-door keeper of a tumble-down theater in Shamokin came in with three coal-miners to appear as supers in the picnic scene. They came with the miners' tapers burning smokily in their caps, faces begrimed and black as night. The door-keeper, too, worked in the mines and set his falming headgear down on the window while taking instructions from Nate regarding the limited business of the scene.
" ' Fellers, ' orated the miner, in a raspy voice, 'yous is got to be good to-night ; remember one more of us is gone an' dere's no telling ' who's goin' to take her place.' "
I asked Salsbruy what occult strategy he invoked to manage the Indians under the strain of temper and climate. He looked at me in quiet scorn for my humble reasoning powers and said : " I traveled fourteen years with a soubreatte. Life with sevety-five Indians is tenderly peacful in comparison. "
Uppermost in the conversation was the Derby, the stuning throw-down and general outlook for a horse-race which might see the flag drop inside of an hour and a half.
Everything reminds Cody of something else a shade better than the subject at hand. The Derby awakend recollections of some of the early Dakota fair races where the excting and delusive " ringer" took an august part in the sport. Once a sleepy greaser matched a still more somenolent equine against the fastest horse Cody had on his ranch.
The Mexican kept his steed in an old adobe house and let him graze around in a listless sort of style for day or so. But the race day the horse appeared in pattern trim, surmounted with a dapper little jockey the like of which North Platte had never seen. Cody had all his money on his own horse and a glimpse of the opponent showed him that he had been watching the wrong horse doze about in the pamps. But they don't say much about those things out in that country, and Bill thought he would sport the race anyhow. After they had gone about half the distance and Cody had just cought sight of the jockey's chipper colors once in the heat the rider called out to him : ' How much of this do you want" Bill yelled into the melanchloy distance separating them : ' I guess this is far enough."
Buck Taylor, who is one of those slow hunorists in which the prairie a bounds, sauntered but into the town one morning and found eight
Colorado cowboys with champing broncos tethred to their iron wrists. " Whatcher calc' late doin' ?" lazily queried Buck. " Hoss-race," was the portentous reply.
