The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1913-08-10
PASSING OF BUFFALO BILL

make three rings where there was
one, nine elephants where there were
three. add circus riders In spangles
To circus riders In tights, hire Japa-
nese eQuilibrists and the doors of ex-
hfbition stunts in Europe or wherever
he could find them. He might have
operated his great organization in
China or lower Austria as we'll as in
the United States for all the Amert.
can nationality In his acts.
Then in 1883 along came the first
wild west. Oh, how it fired the imag-
nation OF young and old. If you had
read your Fennimore Cooper or your
Captain Mayne Reed or any of the
200 dime novels OF the day, you had
store Of unvisualized memories Of
the romantic men who made America
! In advance of the farmer and the
manufacturer, and Of the Indian, who
retreated before that advance. You
had read Of Daniel Boone, and you
would have given money to see him.
Mere soldiers did not count. Four
years of civil war with their immense
armies, their wholesale slaughter,
their crop OF martial heroes and the
incessant storytelling of million
and half OF survivors, most of them
active and unashamed, had dulled the
popular curiosity for men Of the army
! and even OF the navy There were
people then who would run miles from
a "war story"
j But live Indians, real scouts, won
derful rifle shots, miraculous riders
In astonishing toys and trapping SOM
breros, ah, that was life worth seeing.
AS for soldiers, there was magic in
the blue overcoated cavalrymen, who
had mounted guard In the lonely
prairies and ridden at the heels of
Terry or Crooke or Miles through
gorge and canyon with the shostiles"
just ahead Of them, or maybe popping
at them from beetling rock or a
clump OF cactus.
1t was in great vacant lot on the
upper west side, long since built over.
that the wild west found Its foothold.
There on the bare earth, as 1t were.
on new cleared ground in the forest
| land, only that distant houses instead
OF trees filled out the horizon. the
rough amphitheater was erected, the
tents pitched, the Indian ter yes set
up. There when the show was over
| the sQuaws cooked and the papooses
gambolled and the big wicked looking
Indians sat gloomiIy apart and said
| 'sUgh,'.
/ But never had such show been
seen in Christendom. Never was
such a stentorian announcer" as
Major Burke And when they all
filed in on horseback. the band play
ing and flags streaming, there was a
momentary silence OF wonder and
then. as the magnificent figure o.
( Buffalo Bill on his curvetting steeo
was seen, there came roar of ap-
plause that seems roaring yet. Surely
\ he was king as much as popular
jubilation can make one. Yes, 1t was
i Buffalo Bill, waving his sombrero,
i bowling right and left, smiling, super,
Tor. happy not the leaner, younger
} Bill of his scouting days, but an ex.
banded, gaudily splendid, kingly Bill
1 the Snowman.
i And his ready rifle! How he shot
with 1t, breaking tossed balls as cas-
lily as drawing corks. Frantic ap-
plause. And then the fierce little
drama of the Deadwood coach. How
4 recall the small boy who had tenn
porarily disappeared from among his
guardians and reappeared unexpected
: ly as the wretched old relic OF prim'
tive coaching days came iouncing on
drawn by four horses at gallop.
Where were you?"
"They wouldn't take me-"
who wouldn't?"
"They wouldn't take me on the
Deadwood coach as a passenger
Boo-oo!"
Would you rather be a passen
ger?"
"Td like best to be the old man on
! the roof"
: Who does not remember the beard
ed old party lying on the roof of the
I coach-he might be half drunk and
about to sleep the sleep OF tanglefoo,
or he might be Plato thinking over
I the problem Of the universe. but in
either case a harmless looking crea
ture, in shabby bucksk,n. until the
Indians attacked the coach with guns
and war whoops. Then how the old
: man appeared to be pumping death
l into the tribes with endless revolvers
; showing all over him! Then came
!. the cowboy rescue party led by Bill
Cody, and the federal cavalry sweep
I ing up the fragments. How we thrill
!, ed over 1t, simple so,ss. And the
lassoing and the horse throwing, and
the tough frontiersman, who rode the