Excerpt from Gunfighters of the Western Frontier
© 1999 ProofmarkColonel William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody
Pistol in both hands, reins in teeth
Cody, in those days, used pistols altogether in killing buffalo. He would ride his horse full tilt into a herd of buffalo and, with a pistol in either hand and the bridle reins between his teeth, was almost sure to bring down the day's supply of meat at the first run. With six shots in each pistol, he had often killed as many as eight buffalo on a run. This feat was never equaled, although many times attempted by men who fancied they could ride and shoot as well as Cody. Although the country fairly swarmed with desperate men during those year when Buffalo Bill was making history in the West, it is not on record that he ever engaged in a deadly duel with a white man. This was perhaps due to the fact that he had never been called upon for such a purpose. That he would fight if his hand was forced was no secret among those who knew him best.
He had been known on more than one occasion to take a swaggering bully by the neck and, after relieving him of his lethal decorations, soundly shake him until he promised to behave himself. During the several Indian wars which have occurred in different parts of the West in the last forty years, Cody, as scout and guide, has rendered valuable service to the government. He has taken a more or less active part in every expedition the government has sent against the hostile red man since the war of 1868, and by his unerring knowledge of the country and by the skill and fidelity with which he carried out every duty assigned to him, earned for himself a reputation among the army officers who commanded those expeditions second to no man who ever filled a like position.
Such veteran Indian fighters as Generals Carr, Custer, Royal, Crook, Miles, Merritt, and numerous others equally celebrated in Indian warfare, have testified to the undaunted courage, thorough reliability, and great powers of endurance so often displayed by Buffalo Bill while leading the United States soldiers against the red savages. The value to the commander of an Indian expedition of a competent and thoroughly reliable guide can not be overestimated. The services of such a man are absolutely indispensable. The safety and success of the command rests almost entirely on the knowledge and reliability of the guide.
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With the possible exception of Ben Clark, Buffalo Bill typifies those qualities better than any man who has ever acted as scout or guide against the Indians in the West. Ben Clark has been a scout, guide, and Indian interpreter for the government for the last fifty years and is still on the job at Fort Reno, Indian Territory. Although he has been a leading figure in all the Indian outbreaks which have taken place throughout the West since the breaking out of the Civil War, and has, through force of circumstances, on numerous occasions been thrown in contact with all manner of desperate and lawless characters, he had never been known to have had a serious run in with a white man. Like Buffalo Bill, he has repeatedly fought and killed the red warrior, but has managed somehow during all these years to live in peace and harmony with the paleface.
Buffalo Bill has been a showman for the last thirty-five years, and during that time has presented in a genuinely realistic manner, not only to the people of his own country but those of foreign lands, scenes and incidents in the daily life of the pioneers of our once boundless frontier.
